


Loss of Hammers and Making ‘Okily Dokilyium’

by Violetsaber525



Series: How Getting Caught up with the Starks Fixed the Universe [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Jarvis (Iron Man movies), BAMF Women, Bifrost, Darcy Lewis Loves Tasers, Everyone Loves Peter Parker, F/M, Gen, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis Friendship, Jane Foster Loves Science (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Maggie has to fix EVERYTHING, Not Canon Compliant, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Other, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Has a Family, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Sentient Infinity Stones (Marvel), Sif and Warriors Three Blindly Follow, Sneaky Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Thor (Marvel) Being an Idiot, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark has a family, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:15:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28448271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violetsaber525/pseuds/Violetsaber525
Summary: When Tony finds out he's dying and needs to do some dangerous science, he sends Maggie and Peter off to visit New Mexico to learn some space science with Doctor Foster and The Taserist, magic and chaos ensues.
Relationships: Darcy Lewis & Original Female Character(s), Darcy Lewis & Peter Parker, Frigga | Freyja/Odin (Marvel), Happy Hogan & Peter Parker, Happy Hogan & Peter Parker & Pepper Potts & James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis, Jane Foster/Thor, Loki & Thor (Marvel), Loki/Sigyn (Marvel), Peter Parker & Original Female Character(s), Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Original Female Character(s)
Series: How Getting Caught up with the Starks Fixed the Universe [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2040386
Comments: 51
Kudos: 75





	1. A New Stark and Okily Dokilyium

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Memento Mori](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15176378) by [GwendolynStacy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwendolynStacy/pseuds/GwendolynStacy). 



> This work will go a little differently from the previous two, it will flip from Thor to Iron Man 2 each chapter until around chapters 5 and 6. I thought it would make it a little easier to process and change it up a little. I hope you enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Part 3 and Iron Man 2!
> 
> *Few minor edits for flow 1/9/21

A well dressed, female newscaster behind a desk glanced up at the camera, “In other news, there have been several enemy camps destroyed by a single unidentifiable flying object in Afghanistan yesterday. Representatives from the United States Airforce and the Pentagon say that it is a joint venture between them and a private organization and refused to comment further.”

She turned to the camera to her right, “The Stark Expo in Queens is due to start next week with their opening ceremonies featuring Tony Stark and his son Peter! Let’s go to Laura in Queens for the latest updates…..”

*********

Maggie will never admit to the amount of time she spends on TUMBLER. Nope. She does not have a board on how tasers are the new modern equalizer. She also somehow ended up making a new friend Tas3rz4li43, who was just another enthusiast and when they started to talk about taser batons, she knew that this was probably a mistake. But when she found out that her new friend was an old friend Darcy Lewis, she knew that there was no going back. They had met in high school and then when they graduated, had lost contact. So when Darcy called and told her that she would be in New Mexico for three months and asked her if she wanted to go hang out with her and Jane, she jumped at the chance for a vacation.

The opening ceremonies for Stark Expo would start next week with Peter and Tony doing the opening ceremony together. After she would head to New Mexico and Peter and Tony would spend some time visiting May and Ben in Queens before heading home for Tony’s birthday. She would spend the week in New Mexico and then be home for the party.

When Stane had died and all his shares had gone to Tony, Tony had sat her down for one of the hardest conversations of her life. “Mags, I don’t want Stane’s shares so I’m giving them to you.”

“Uh, yeah, I don’t think so Tony.” She stood up and pointed her finger in his face, “If this is some kind of guilt thing, I’m out.”

“No, no, no Mags. This is compensation from the man that fucked up your life and a lifetime of financial security for my little sister. Because that is what you are. JARVIS, where did I put those papers?” Tony jumped up and wandered around the living room, before disappearing into his office. Coming back with a teal folder (Pepper color-coded their files, Maggie’s was teal, Tony red, Peter blue, Happy yellow, etc.) he handed it to her.

Flipping it open she saw the shares already in her name “Damn it, Tony!”

“Nuh-uh, there’s more,” he flipped some pages for her, revealing some more documents. “I want to adopt you and make you legally my sister. If something happened to me, you and Peter both would be protected legally. I would add you to the group trust that is already set up for Peter and you would be his legal guardian.”

“But…”

“May and Ben have their own lives and this would be a huge burden on them. They don’t know how to deal with the fame, the money, and the Paparazzi. You are trained to protect him and other than me, you know Peter the best.”

“But Tony…”

“I know, I know you don’t know how to deal with money, but we have Pep for that. She is the accountant of our family,” he forced a smile at her because this was as difficult for him as it was for her.

“Stop!” She held a hand over his mouth. “JARVIS, what brought this on? And no lies or deflection!”

“Sir is suffering from heavy metal poisoning from the arc reactor and unless we find an element to replace the Palladium, he will die from it.”

“What?! Tony!” She shouted into his sad face. She moved her hand and reached for his rough, calloused hand, “JARVIS, I know you’ve been searching through the files we uploaded. Did you find anything?”

“Yes, I believe I did. It will take me a little bit to analyze the data and then I believe Sir and I may be able to synthesize a new element that Howard Stark discovered.” Tony looked surprised at JARVIS’s reply, this was news to him too.

“Then why do this Tony?” She asked him, concerned.

“You deserve your independence and Peter deserves someone to care for him if I don’t make it through all this.” He squeezed her hand, “Rhodey and Pepper both have their responsibilities that would make child-rearing very difficult, and Happy is not a kid person. Let’s be honest, Pete would drive him crazy in two days,” he tried to deflect. Taking a deep breath, he raked his hands through his already disheveled hair, “Please Mags,” he pleaded, “please do this.”

She agreed and somehow went from Nanny to sister and took the Stark name, she still couldn’t believe that she agreed to it. She was sure that Howard was spinning in his grave.

***********

“Welcome to Stark Expo!” Tony shouted to the crowd, dressed in a tuxedo. A woman in the crowd screamed, “I love you, Tony!” And the whole crowd cheered.

“Please, It’s not about me, it’s not about you, it’s not even about us! It’s about legacy and what we chose to leave behind for future generations. Right, Pete?”

“Right, Dad!” Peter stepped out from behind Tony, dressed in a miniature version of his tuxedo. The crowd awed, Peter waved at them and grabbed his dad’s hand.

“And that’s why for the next year and for the first time since 1974, the best and brightest men and women of nations and corporations the world over will pool their resources, share their collective vision, to leave behind a brighter future. It’s not about us. It’s for our future and our children.” Tony paused and looked down at his son, “Therefore, what I’m saying is welcome back to the Stark Expo!”

The crowd cheered and screamed at them. Peter waved again and smiled up at his dad, Tony nodded to him, “And now, making a special guest appearance from the great beyond to tell you what’s it’s all about, please welcome my grandpa, Howard Stark!”

A video of Howard Stark played in the background as they went backstage. “Awesome job, buddy, I’m so proud of you!” Tony praised as they made their way back to their dressing room to change and meet up with Happy.

“Thanks, Dad,” Peter pushed open the door of their dressing room and then flung himself onto the couch, “It was sooo scary, but awesome too.”

Tony laughed at his son as he pulled off his tie and unbuttoned his jacket, “Come on Pete, we need to get changed so we can meet May and Ben for dinner.”

“Is Maggie coming too?” Peter’s muffled voice came from under a pillow, “She said she was going to go visit a friend.”

“Yeah, she’s coming and then you and she are off to New Mexico for some site seeing and visiting her crazy friend and Doctor Jane Foster.”

“I’m going too!?” Peter jumped up from the couch.

“Yeah, JARVIS and I need to do some major and dangerous science experiments so I need you to be safely out of the house for it.”

“I don’t believe you’ve informed Miss Maggie about this, Sir,” JARVIS’ voice came from Tony’s phone on the counter.

“It was last minute, I need to do this sooner than later and I need Peter in a safe place.”

“What about your birthday party Dad?” Peter looked sadly at his shoes, “Don’t you want me there?”

“I want you all there, but I’m going to postpone it for a few weeks, this is more important.” Tony maneuvered Peter to the couch and they both sat down, “there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What?” Peter looked worried and grabbed Tony’s hand.

“The reactor is making me sick and unless I replace the Palladium, I could become very sick,” Tony softened the truth. Maggie had told him that he needed to tell Peter months ago when he had her sign all the paperwork and now he was finally owning up to it.

“Are you dying?”

Tony sat there and stared at his son, tears dripping down the 8-year-olds cheeks, “Yes,” Came Tony’s whispered reply.

A knock was heard on their door and a familiar face peeked around it, “Happy is texting me asking where we are-.” Maggie trailed off as she saw Peter crying and clutching his father. She looked at Tony’s wet eyes and pale face and sat down on the other side of Peter and rubbed his back. “You told him,” she looked to Tony and he nodded, “Good,” she said as she continued to rub Peter’s back as he cried on his father.

“Peter, honey, JARVIS said that there is an 80% chance of this working and you know how safe JARVIS is with his percentages. If JARVIS says 80%, it’s a sure thing.”

“JARVIS?” The muffled stuffy voice asked the AI, “Is Maggie right?”

“Yes, Master Peter. Your Grandfather’s research had everything your Father and I need to be able to synthesize this new element. There are several calculations that I need to do and a particle collider to build, but I believe very soon we shall have a new element.”

“Good!” Maggie stood and went over to Peter’s bag as she dug in and pulled out a pair of jeans and a blue Henley, “let’s get changed before Happy gets frustrated and comes after us,” she handed the clothes to Tony and went to the door. “JARVIS told me that I’ll have a travel buddy,” she looked sternly at Tony, “I think we’ll need to talk about that after dinner.”

********

Dinner was delightful. They went to a mid-range Italian restaurant that offered private dining rooms. Tony and May had both taught Peter some Italian, so he practiced it with their waitress who owned the restaurant with her husband and two daughters. They made the effort to visit the restaurant because she had been a childhood friend of Tony’s mother and always loved to dote on her honorary child and grandchild.

“ _Ah, baby Peter is growing up so fast,”_ Angelica said as she put the pitcher of water on the table, “ _and you too, Antonio._ ” She said in Italian as she smiled at the two Stark boys with a flash of gold from her teeth. “ _I see you brought Margaret and the Parkers, Antonio. It’s always a joy to see your family.”_

_“I’m not a baby,”_ Peter muttered under his breath in Italian causing Tony, May, and Angelica to laugh. Maggie and Ben smiled at everyone else’s amusement, not knowing what was being said.

_“You’re our baby, Peter,”_ May said as she leaned over to kiss her nephew, “ _no matter how old you get.”_

_“Antonio will always be a baby too. I remember when your Nonna Maria brought him round for me to hold. You look just like him,”_ Angelica said as she ruffled Peter’s hair, “Now what drinks may I bring for all of you?” She asked in English. They ordered drinks and their meals and she left them alone to put in their orders.

“So I heard you were going to go visit your crazy taser friend, Maggie,” May chimed in as she sipped her water.

“Ugh, she’s not crazy,” Maggie rolled her eyes, “we both just happen to use tasers for self-defense,” she deflected.

“She’s a Political Science major who carries a taser. She’s crazy Mags,” Tony threw in, “You are a talented batonist that can kill with your pinky, completely different. She should take a page from Pepper and use pepper spray and stilettos, less lawsuits.”

Maggie shook her head, “Well, she’ll be meeting your son ...” She trailed off for the dramatic effect.

“Oh, shit, I didn’t think this through. JARVIS, can we put Pete in a safety bubble while we do dangerous science? I think it would be less dangerous than meeting The Taserist.”

“I’m sorry, Sir, I believe Master Peter is safer with Miss Maggie and her friend. Doctor Foster will be there to keep order in the chaos that is due to occur.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Brilliant Astrophysicists, amazing at making her own equipment,” Tony fiddled with a breadstick. “Need to get a look at some of her tech-,” he trailed off as he got lost in his little science bubble.

“And we lost him,” May quipped, “How’s school going, Peter?”

“Good! They have me working on freshman algebra and Daddy said he could help me with some harder things if I get bored. I also got an A on my art project that Maggie helped me build.”

“Oh? What art project?” Ben asked before he ate a breadstick, hungrily.

“It’s sooooo cool! She helped me make a free-standing board that’s as tall as I am and Dad helped with the math and spacing. So we put tons of nails in it and then we had a bag of rubber bands and we could make all these cool shapes. We also did a few string art pieces to hang in my room,” Peter pulled out his phone and started showing May and Ben pictures. 

“He loves geoboards now, I think he might love them more than Legos,” Maggie said as she elbowed Tony. “He’s definitely your son.”

“Huh? Oh-? I know he’s my son. What are you talking about Mags?”

“Tony, are you done on your science tangent? Peter is showing off his art project,” May said as she admired the many pictures Peter was showing them.

“I’m never done with my science tangents,” Tony retorted sullenly, “I’m a walking science tangent.”

“Oh, so freaking true,” Maggie said before grabbing the last breadstick, “I think its terminal.”

Dinner was fun and light, despite Tony’s unspoken health problem. Tony had felt that it was best to not say anything unless absolutely necessary and Peter kept quiet. In the car on the way back to the house with Peter cuddled up to Tony, Maggie asked about the change in plans.

“You’re planning for the worst, aren’t you?” She confronted him.

“Yes. I owe it to Peter, SI, and the rest of you to not leave you with the mess that was my life. JARVIS has everything organized on my private server so there are no lengthy legal battles or hiccups, and everything goes as smoothly as possible. I’m making Pep CEO when I get back.”

“What about CFO? Do you have someone set up to take over that?”

“Not yet, but I’m sure Pep has someone in mind.”

“How long, Tony?”

“With the missions to destroy weapons accelerating it, JARVIS predicted about another month and a half without a new element.”

Maggie felt her heart sink and tears came to her eyes. She couldn’t believe that this was happening. The thing keeping him alive was also killing him and he just wanted to make sure that he didn’t leave behind a legacy that Peter would be ashamed of.

“And without the missions, how long would have you had?”

“Probably a few years, it’s hard to figure out since I started flying with the suits as soon as I built the reactor. Strange said that the levels increase exponentially during suit usage and then decrease immediately after.” Silence fell over the car, Peter’s soft snores the only sound, as they both contemplated the possible outcome if the element didn’t work.

They pulled into the garage of the townhouse that Tony had purchased after Peter’s kidnapping and Maggie put a hand on Tony’s arm, “It will work and you will come up with some silly name like ‘Okily Dokilyium’ or something. I believe in you and JARVIS but if I have to go beat the shit out of the Pirate for help, I will,” She threatened. “He knows where Bruce Banner is, JARVIS confirmed it for me last week.”

Tony smiled and pulled her into a hug, squeezing and waking Peter at the same time. A muffled, “Oh, this is nice,” came from the squished kid.

“We know how much you love your hugs, underoos. Let’s get you to bed so you can get up early to go play space science in New Mexico with Maggie and Doctor Foster.”

“‘K,” came the sleepy reply as Maggie picked him up and he wrapped his arms and legs around her. “Night, Daddy. Love you.”

“Night bambino, I’ll see you in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to Iron Man 2, where no one knows that Tony is Iron Man because he wanted to protect Peter. Rhodey made a Top Secret deal and I'll talk about that later in the story. Since Tony was forced to Be an Adult when Peter became his son and with the influence of stable minded people (Pepper, Rhodey and Maggie) he's able to take a moment to realize that he needs to get his shit together for Peter. Hence the Group Trust for Peter and setting up wills and guardians and making Pepper CEO in a responsible way. JARVIS organizing everything and making sure Sir stays on task also helps because if Tony doesn't, JARVIS tattles on him. 
> 
> To summarize, Tony has healthy relationships but he's still his silly science mess that we love that wants to make the world a safer and better place.
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3 ~M.


	2. The Rise and Fall of Thor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Thor and Loki! Welcome to my mad mad world!

They stand by the brazier at the foot of steps that led up to the crowded throne room. Loki glared at his brother as he drank the fifth cup of wine, “We have a ceremony in a matter of minutes and you are drinking yourself senseless. Nervous, brother?

Thor gestured for another by throwing the goblet to the floor and Loki rubbed his temples. The headache from wearing his helm was made worse by his brother’s idiotic behavior. They were both dressed in their formal armor waiting for Thor’s crowning ceremony to commence and all Loki wanted to do was stab his brother for his idiocy. He sighed and then gritted his teeth. Sigyn would never have allowed this. She had been proficient in making his brother behave the way he was supposed to. In the last two hundred years since she had died, he struggled alone to get his brother to act like the crown prince that he supposedly was.

“Have you ever known me to be nervous?” Thor sipped from his sixth cup.

“There was that time in Nornheim …”

“That wasn’t nerves, brother. It was the rage of battle. How else could I have fought my way through a hundred warriors and pulled us out alive?” The servant approached with a seventh cup.

“As I recall, I was the one who veiled us in the smoke to ease our escape and Sigyn sent the shock wave to disable their weapons.”

“Some do battle, others just do tricks.” Thor quipped and the servant stifled his laughter as Loki glared at their impertinence.

“She saved us and you mock her memory,” Loki hissed at his brother.

Loki waved his hand and eels poured out of the cup that the servant held and slithered out and across the servant’s hand. The servant screamed before they threw the cup to the floor and fled the chamber.

“Loki...” Thor admonished his brother as he continued to sip from the cup still in his hand. Loki waved his hand and the eels turned back into spilled wine. “That was just a waste of good wine,” Thor lamented.

“Well, we can’t all have everything we were destined for,” Loki replied bitterly.

“I miss her too, brother,” Thor grasped his winged helmet and placed it over his gold curls. “She would have chided me for drinking before such an event. You do her memory a service.”

Loki glanced down the teal stone in his gauntlet and rubbed it in memory, “Nice feathers.”

“Oh, you want to start this again-? Cow-.”

“I was being sincere!”

“You are incapable of sincerity. Only around her would you endeavor.”

“That is not true,” Loki looked his brother in his eyes and grasped his shoulders. “I’ve looked forward to this day as long as you have. You’re my brother and my friend. Sometimes I am envious of your destiny, but never doubt that I love you.”

Thor looked down on his brother, “Thank you, Loki.”

Loki struggled with Sigyn’s loss and it had seemed to weigh heavier the last few weeks as they prepared for Thor’s crowning ceremony. She would have ascended her throne last year and Loki would have been her consort. So seeing Thor undertake his destiny when his had been brutally taken from him, was a very bitter pill to swallow.

“How do I look,” Thor asked as he made some final adjustments to his grieves and cape.

“Like a king,” Loki said as he pasted a smile on his face and the ceremonial horn blasted through the chambers, “It’s time.”

“Go ahead, Loki, I’ll be along.” Thor gestured with Mjölnir.

Loki rolled his eyes, “You just want to make an entrance.”

“You know me so well, brother. Escort Mother to the throne and I’ll follow behind you.”

Loki sighed and made his way out of the chamber.

************

After the disruption to the crowning ceremony, from the attack of the Frost Giants and the All-Father forbidding them from leaving Asgard to seek vengeance upon the race, Loki still couldn’t believe that the idiots had followed his reckless brother to Jotunheim. He also couldn’t believe that Heimdall had allowed them to go in the first place! Wasn’t he supposed to be the gatekeeper and protect Asgard from those who would do it harm? Wasn’t keeping his witless brother in Asgard a part of that?

The five of them stood at the edge of an icy abyss, the intricate pattern of the Bifrost still sizzled from their landing, “We shouldn’t be here,” Hogun declared as he pulled out his mace Hridgandr.

“It’s too late now,” Thor declared as he moved away from the others.

“Actually, it’s not. We could turn right around, hop back to Asgard, share a mug by the fire. Could be nice,” Fandral tried to persuade Thor as he played with the hilt of his rapier. Thor just ignored him and continued towards the far off city of ice.

Loki looked around them, searching the terrain for movement, and prayed that the guard he had told to warn Odin did his duty. “Perhaps we should wait.”

Thor turned and glared at Loki, “For what?”

“To survey the enemy, to gauge their strengths and weaknesses from a distance,” Loki suggested as a delay tactic for time. He needed backup to stop this madness.

It didn’t work. Thor scoffed and moved off again.

“I’m liking that. Gauging, surveying. Especially that distance part,” Volstagg mentioned as he gripped his battle-ax nervously.

“We know all we need and it's time to act,” Thor gritted out as he moved around a sharp piece of stone and ice, the rest trailed reluctantly behind him.

“He’s just got to swing his hammer…,” Sif said as she adjusted her furred cloak and gripped her shield, “There’s no Sigyn for diplomacy or last-minute escapes-.” She looked over at Loki and past him to Thor, “But she would have stopped this madness before we would have left the Hall,” she muttered.

Loki gritted his teeth and felt for the teal gem. She was right. Sigyn would have blasted Thor and told him to remember his lessons.

They continued over the rough frozen wasteland, shielding themselves with shields and boulders as they made their way closer to the haunted city. Volstagg shivered and dragged his feet as he clutched his cloak closer to his body. Loki searched the terrain for movement anxiously wondering what was taking the guard and his father so long. This was madness!

“It feels good, doesn't it? To be together again, adventuring on another world?” Thor tried to cheer his friends and brother.

“Adventuring? Is that what we’re doing?” Fandral muttered.

“What would you call it?”

“Frreeezing,” Fandral replied pulling at his cloak.

“Starving,” Volstagg said as his stomach grumbled.

“Whining.” Sif quipped.

“How about a song to lift our spirits?” Thor suggested with a smile.

“No! Not that!” Hogan yelled from behind Volstagg.

**********

After they entered the city, the emptiness and darkness seemed haunting. As they followed Thor into the plaza, cracks of ice and the rustle of movement making them even warier and on edge.

“What is your business here, Asgardians?” A voice echoed off the stone and ice making it difficult to pinpoint the speaker.

“I will only speak to your King. Not to his foot soldiers,” Thor declared.

“Then speak,” stated a voice from the balcony of the temple to their right. “I am Laufey, King of this Relm.”

“And I am-.”

“We know who you are, Odinson. Why have you brought the stench of your blood into my world?”

“I demand answers.”

“You demand?”

“How did your people get into Asgard?”

“The House of Odin is full of traitors,” Laufey’s statement caused Sif and The Warriors Three to share a puzzled look.

“Do not dishonor my father’s name with your lies!” Thor shouted.

“Your father is a murderer and a thief! He stole what was ours and left our world in ruins. We have the right to reclaim the Casket.”

Loki knew that this was going downhill fast and if he didn’t act fast, they all would be dead. As he thought quickly for a solution, the tension rose as Laufey and Thor spoke, “Thor, stop and think. Look around you. We are outnumbered.” The Frost Giants had crept out of their hiding places and now circled the small group of Asgardians.

“Know your place, brother,” Thor growled.

“You should listen to his counsel. You know not what your actions would unleash.” Laufey stepped out of the shadows and the Frost Giants moved closer. “But I do. Go now, while I still allow it.”

“We will accept your most gracious offer,” Loki nodded his head at the King and pulled at Thor’s arm. The other four gripped their weapons and waited. Thor stared Laufey down and reluctantly turned towards his brother and the others and they sighed in relief.

“Run home, little princess,” Came a voice from their left and Loki felt his whole body sink in despair.

“Damn.”

**********

The whole battle seemed to take forever but it was only just an hour as they fought for their lives. Sif battled with poise and saved Volstagg, Hogun got frozen in ice, Fandral was impaled by ice spikes, Volstagg somehow managed to run leagues with Fandral on his back and Thor used his usual brute strength to smash his problems.

_What a bloody stupid frigid mess!_ After the Frost Giant had grabbed his wrist, stripping him of his greave and that revealed an unexpected result, he was past ready to get off this frozen wasteland! First, he was going to kill the guard that had taken his time to alert their father, then cut off all of Thor’s hair and then stab Heimdall in his all-seeing eyes!

They somehow made it back to the Bifrost landing site and Thor had made the ground unstable with Mjolnir and his seiðr. The Frost Giants had covered the entire area in fog so it disrupted their vision, making them leery of moving. One wrong step and they all could fall into the abyss to their deaths. As Thor caught up to them and landed next to Loki, he caused the mists to ripple out from his impact.

“Loki, we have to see,” Thor grit out between heavy breaths.

As Loki lifted his arms and swept the mist away before them appeared the faces of thousands of Frost Giants.

“Actually, could you bring them mists back, please?” Volstagg said lightly over his fear.

Just as the Frost Giants moved in, ice blades shimmering in the darkness, the Bifrost opened and the All-Father descended on Sleipnir, clad in his battle armor with Gungnir in his hand.

“Laufey! End this!” Odin boomed.

“Your boy sought this out,” was the grim answer.

“You're right. These are the actions of a boy. Treat them as such. You and I can stop this before there's further bloodshed.” 

“We are beyond diplomacy now, All-Father! He'll get what he came for -- war and death!” 

“So be it.” Odin’s grim and determined reply seemed to prompt the Frost Giant King to action. He swung his ice blade at Odin, Odin deflected it with Gungnir, and a wave of energy swept across the barren wasteland.

“Now! We’ll finish them together!” Thor shouted to his father.

“Silence!” Odin admonished Thor harshly, his voice echoed with seiðr and anger. He then lifted Gungnir in the air and summoned the Bifrost, transporting them back to Asgard.

As they landed, Loki pulled away from the others as they dragged Fandral out of the room to the healers and Odin pulled Heimdall’s sword from the Bifrost controls. Throwing the sword at Heimdall, the Guardian caught it and moved swiftly after them.

“Why did you bring us back?” Thor shouted angrily.

“Do you realize what you’ve done? What you’ve started?!” Odin seemed beyond anger, disbelief at Thor’s actions echoing in his voice.

“I was protecting my home!”

“If you cannot protect your friends, how do you hope to protect our Kingdom?”

“There won’t be a Kingdom to protect if you are afraid to act!” Thor screamed as Loki backed himself into the shadows. “Whatever the cost, the world must know that the new King of Asgard will not be held in contempt.”

Silence fell over the room. Odin angrily griped Gungnir and Loki could feel the All Father’s seiðr ripple. “You are not King yet,” Odin paused and Thor’s face turned red with fury, lightning rippled around him. “Have you forgotten everything that we’ve taught you? What of a warrior’s patience and cunning? Diplomacy first and war as a last resort? You are a vain, prideful, cruel boy!”

“And you are an old man and a fool!”

The silence this time is foreboding and terrifying. Like the calm, before the storm and Odin looked down at his hands and the seiðr in the room seems to charge. “I am a fool. A fool who thought you were ready to be King.”

Loki moved towards his father, as he sensed something was about to happen that they would all soon regret. Sensing the movement, Odin turned and gave him a stern look and pointed Gungnir at him in warning. As he turned back to Thor, Odin took a deep breath, his seiðr rose in him and his eyes started to glow.

“ ** _Thor Odinson! You have disobeyed the express command of your King! Through your arrogance and stupidity, you have opened these peaceful Realms and innocent lives to the horrors of war!”_** Odin’s voice echoed through the chamber and the cosmos. “ ** _You are unworthy of your titles!”_** Thor’s armor started to pull off of him, **_“Of your Powers!”_** Mjolnir pulled from his hand to Odin’s. “ ** _In the name of my father!”_** Lighting from the hammer struck Thor and stripped off his under armor and the chest plate, **_“And his fathers before him!”_** The rest of the armor disintegrated and Thor was left standing in nothing but his armor padding. **_“I CAST YOU OUT!”_** Thor was flung into the Bifrost.

As Loki watched in disbelief as his brother was flung into the vortex of the Bifrost, Odin held Mjölnir to his lips and whispered to her. “ ** _Whosoever holds this hammer, if they are worthy, shall possess the powers of Thor.”_** Mjölnir shimmered, gold runes swirled up and down the handle and the head, but right before Odin flung it after Thor, the runes glimmered teal and then back to gold.

“Unworthy… I cast you out….!” hung and echoed in the air as Thor was banished from his homeworld, Mjölnir flung after him.

When Odin left and Loki stood alone in the quiet chamber, he realized that this was the best way to protect his only home. With no bumbling brother to wage war in the Nine Realms, Asgard would remain safe. He turned and followed his father, a sly grin on his face. He couldn’t have planned this better. Now all he had to do was prove himself to be the better heir to his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few changes from the movie so far, nothing too big. But I assure you it will change much after this. Loki still wants to be the better son and Thor is still a big blond dumb neanderthal. Where's Frigga when you need her? I betcha she was pissed when she heard what Odin did. 
> 
> "What do you mean you stripped him of his powers and threw him to Midgard?! We talked about this the last time you got rid of one of the kids!" 
> 
> Hmmm, perhaps we'll have Frigga be a bit more BAMF... 
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3 ~M.
> 
> PS: When I edited this with Grammarly, the pop up at the end was: 'To err is human; to edit, divine.' How fitting for this part LMAO!


	3. Space Science in the South West and Finding Hercules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie and Peter get dropped off in New Mexico for some space science but end up complicit in a car accident with Hercules. Tony finds a new assistant, Pepper has to deal with a cold and extra responsibilities, and JARVIS has some plans for Sir's safety while Maggie is on vacay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a bit of a read, (Like really freaking long) but well worth it!

Maggie woke early, no objects fell from the air this time and she shuffled to the bath to get ready for their early flight. She and Peter would be dropped in New Mexico and Tony would continue to the Malibu mansion.

She had texted Darcy last night that she would be arriving today and Darcy had asked her to give Erik Selvig a ride if she could. _His flight comes in around 2 pm, could you give him a ride out to us?_

She had agreed since he was someone that Tony was familiar with and JARVIS had cleared him as safe. “Another scientist for Pete to fanboy over science with,” Tony had said last night when she talked to him about it.

Getting the Stark boys up was always an effort of patience, gentle manipulation, and bribery. She had JARVIS wake up Tony and she got Peter up, dressed, packed, and to the table for breakfast in a record-breaking 20 minutes. JARVIS had managed to get Tony down the stairs in his pajamas at least, with the promise of coffee from Leo JR (the miniaturized version of Leonardo De Espresso) and some donuts from the shop around the corner that Happy had picked up.

Happy packed the car, he had eaten before the boys had wobbled down the stairs, and Maggie got Tony to go shower and finish packing after he stuffed his face with three donuts and a quad shot. “I’ll prep you a to-go cup of the Brazilian blend if you go right now to get ready, Tony.” She knew his weaknesses. He mumbled something and staggered off. The heavy metal poisoning was messing with his sleep schedule and making his caffeine more difficult to absorb.

“JARVIS, please reach out to Doctor Strange for suggestions to mitigate some of the symptoms of Tony’s reactor. It seems that it’s getting worse every day and he needs all his strength to work through the element.” JARVIS was integrated into all of Tony’s homes now so he could manage all the security and maintenance.

“Yes, Miss. I’ll send an email since the Doctor’s schedule seems to be quite full lately.”

“Thanks, JARVIS. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“I believe Miss, you would have run screaming for the hills a week into your duties.”

“Probably,” she admitted, “but Peter is adorable, so it probably would have been a few weeks.”

*********

They got on the plane and flew to Santa Fe and where a car was waiting for her so she could drive the 30 minutes to Puente Antiguo. Tony hugged her, handed her the Leo Jr, gave Peter a hug and kiss, and waved goodbye before getting back on the plane. “Have fun, you two! Name a star after me!”

“We’re not doing that type of space science, Dad!” Peter shouted over the plane engines. Tony just waved again and the stairs lifted and sealed and the plane taxied off.

Maggie organized their bags and took Peter’s hand and they went into the concourse and she sat down in a group of empty chairs.

After an hour she took out her phone and tapped the icon to connect to JARVIS.

“Hey JARVIS, how much longer till Doctor Selvig is due in?”

“His plane is landing now, Miss.”

“Oh, good. I think Peter is getting a little impatient,” She watched the kiddo jump from tile to tile to his hopscotch like game.

She flipped open The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan (she was pre-reading some books for Peter) and settled down to read a chapter or two before they had to leave. She found the mythology intriguing and wondered how much she could use this as a lesson in mythology and ancient cultures. He enjoyed fantasy stories of battles with monsters and good versus evil, so maybe this would be a good transition piece.

“Ms. Stark?” She looked up and found an older gentleman in front of her with a light accent coloring his speech.

“Yes, but please call me Maggie. Are you Doctor Selvig?” She stood and motioned to Peter to come over.

“Yes. Please call me Erik.”

“Erik, this is Peter. Peter this is Doctor Selvig.”

“Hi, Doctor Selvig!” Peter greeted and grinned up at the scientist. “You teach Astrophysics at Culver University?”

“Uh, yes,” Erik seemed a little loss for words, not expecting such a question from someone so young.

“We learned about dark matter and black holes at my afterschool science camp last semester. I also did a presentation on how to find black holes by how it interacts with the matter around it for my science fair last year. When I was doing research, JARVIS spoke of your research and I used some of your papers as a source.”

The scientist stood there with his mouth open, shocked.

“Peter, I think you broke him. Grab your bag and I’ll grab the Doctor’s and mine.”

“Are you ** _those_** Starks?” Erik managed after they had led him halfway to the car pickup area. “You’re Howard Stark’s grandson and Tony Stark is your father?”

“Um… Yes?” Peter said while pulling his roller bag behind him and zig-zagging from wall to wall.

“Are you his mother?”

“Oh, god no! I told Darcy to not use that name, I’m Tony’s adopted sister,” Maggie said a little shocked at the assumption and quickly changed the subject. “Darcy Lewis is my friend and she and Jane invited us down for science and site seeing, we’re staying at the Rancho Gallina. We’re here for a few weeks and then we’re back to Malibu.”

“Oh,” for some reason the Doctor was in information overload.

“Peter! I need you over here!” Maggie shouted at her nephew, “I have to pick up the keys and you are going the wrong way!”

“I’m sorry,” Peter dashed over to them, dragging his suitcase on its side. Maggie reached down and fixed it so it was back on its wheels and they went over to the private car service counter.

“I’m Margaret Skold and I’m here to pick up our car,” she told the man behind the desk as she handed him her ID. Erik seemed to shift at her name and he looked down at the ID when it was slid back across the counter to her.

“Here you go, ma’am. You have the blue Volvo XC60 in spot 25M,” he informed her as he handed her the fob after she signed the paperwork. “Hmm, it looks like it was a special request.”

“I love those Volvos, reliable and the all-wheel drive is a must if we’re going all over the desert,” Maggie states as she pockets the papers, grabs her bag, pushes Erik’s in his hand, and grabs Peter by his hand. “Thank you! Have a good day!” She herds the other two towards the doors.

“You are an interesting woman, Ms. Stark,” Erik says from behind her as they follow the signs to the car.

“It’s Maggie, Doctor. And I never said I wasn’t interesting,” she mutters under her breath, “Ah! Here it is!”

They put all their bags in the back and Maggie checks the car over for visible signs of tampering and then popped the hood to check the fluid levels. Clicking the hood closed, she made sure Peter was buckled incorrectly and got in the driver’s seat. She took a minute to adjust her seat and mirrors. “Everyone ready?”

The trip went pretty fast and with the town being small, they easily found the old gas station that Jane Foster had rented for her research. It was nicely remodeled, highlighting some nicely preserved historic features but promoting modern necessities.

“Maggie!” Came a shout from the open doorway and a dark-haired bespeckled young woman came running out with her arms wide open. “You guys made it!”

“We did! We made good time since Peter and Tony got out of bed on time and Doctor Selvig’s plane was early.”

“Darcy?” Came from the building, “What’s going on?”

“Maggie and Doctor Selvig are here!” She yelled back.

“Hey! I’m here too!” Peter pouted.

“Oh, sorry,” Darcy ruffled his hair and he pouted more and smoothed it down. “You are soooo cute!”

“Darcy, please stop,” Maggie chided as she pulled Peter close to her side. “She gets overexcited like you do,” she kissed his head. “It’s the pixie sticks. I told you, this is what happens when you eat too many.”

“Uhhuh, and the Red Bull,” Jane said as she came out the doors with a black notebook tucked underarm and a pencil stuck in her hair. “If you mix them it destroys brain cells,” she joked.

“Aww, come on!” Darcy complained, “When did it become ‘Pick on Darcy Day’?”

“When you pick on the little kids, it’s a free for all,” Maggie teased. “Hi, I’m Maggie Stark and this is Peter.”

“Hi, I’m Jane Foster. I heard you are here to learn some astrophysics,” She looked down at Peter and held out her hand to him and they shook. “I could use an assistant that understands some of the technical jargon.” She smiled at Peter and Darcy grumbled.

“Oh, I just know a little. I can take good notes and help with equipment maintenance. Dad has me help with his Bots and I know some basic coding.” Peter seemed to vibrate with excitement.

“Oh, he was telling me about his science fair project. I’m sure he knows more than a little,” Erik chimed in as he came over and hugged Jane. “It’s lovely to see you, Jane. How have you been?”

“I’m good and I’m so excited to show you the anomaly!” She looked so excited and started to talk fast with Erik as she dragged him into the building by his hand.

“Maggie, I’m hungry,” Peter turned and wrapped his arms around her waist, and gave her his puppy eyes.

“Hungry, I’m Maggie. It’s nice to meet you,” She teased as she leaned down and kissed his forehead.

“Maggie-!” Peter pouted and stuck out his lip.

“Ok, ok. Darcy is there somewhere we can get some lunch?”

“Oh, there’s a diner we go to all the time. They have the best cheeseburgers and curly fries!”

“How does that sound Pete?”

“Good! Do they have ice cream?”

“Yup, with fudge.”

“Let’s go, Maggie!”

Maggie laughed and they walked back to the car, “What about Jane and Erik?”

“I’ll text her when we get there and bring something back if they want anything. Once Jane gets started, it’s a while before she comes up for air.”

“Ah, an adult genius scientist. I know that feeling,” Maggie sighed as she got in the car. “Promise me when you grow into your adult scientist body, you won’t forget about me, Peter.”

“No promises,” came from the backseat, “It’s genetic. I’m doomed.”

She laughed and they went and got something to eat.

************

Tony felt guilty for leaving Peter with Maggie in New Mexico. He logically knew that making this element was the best chance he had to see Peter grow up but he still wanted to spend all the time he could with his son. Having him at home while building an atom smasher was not the best of parenting practices and he didn’t want Peter to watch him die more and more each day from the heavy metal poisoning that was slowly crawling throughout his body. The black ‘veins’ from the reactor, proof enough of his coming demise if he didn’t do anything quickly.

“Wake up, Daddy’s home!” Tony called out as he entered his lab.

“Welcome home, sir. Maggie just texted us a picture of Peter and her in front of Doctor Foster’s lab. She said he was excited to learn some space science and that she believed that Peter may have broken Doctor Selvig with his mini-genius.”

“Ah, living up to the Stark name. Showing people that we’re going to take over the world with our genius,” he joked as he looked at the smiling faces in the projection.

“Well, with Ms. Potts and Miss Maggie watching over the two of you, I think it could be channeled for the good of humanity rather than the destruction and domination.”

“Wow, you’ve thought about this JARVIS. Planning something I don’t know about?”

“Never, Sir.”

Tony shook his head and took his blood toxicity test. “Blood toxicity is at 24%, Sir. It appears that the last venture in the Iron Man suit last week had more of an adverse effect than we expected.”

“Do Strange’s scan, J. Let’s get this over with so I can chug some more of that gobbledegook and get some work done.” Tony walked over to the prototype pod scanner that he and Strange had co-created as an option for an easy to transport medical scanner to be used by the Doctors Without Borders.

As it started scanning the blender in the kitchen area started to make some noise and Tony looked over and saw U trying to make a smoothie without the lid on. “U! I swear to god, I’ll dismantle you!” He watched as U tipped over the blender and started beeping in panic, “I’ll soak your motherboard and turn you into a wine rack.” U beeped sadly and Tony rolled his eyes.

The scan finished and JARVIS displayed the results. “It appears that your kidneys and liver are at only about 65% function. Your lungs and heart are showing signs of being heavily affected. You are also running a slight fever of 99.3 F. The core is also in need of replacement,” JARVIS paused, “We are running out of time, Sir.”

“I know J,” Tony rubbed his eyes and reached for the cigar box on the workbench next to him before sitting down. He grasped the reactor, twisted, and then pulled it out. The core popped up smoking and badly damaged and Tony moved quickly to replace it before the shards shifted any further.

“Ms. Potts is approaching, Sir. I recommend that you inform her-.”

“Mute,” Tony adjusted the reactor and pulled his shirt down as Pepper punched in her code and entered the workshop. He picked up the chlorophyll drink that Dum-E had set down earlier.

“Tony! What were you thinking?” Her heels clicked menacing on the floor as she made her way across the workshop to him.

“Hey, I’m thinking I’m busy. And you’re angry about something. Do you have the sniffles? I don’t want to get sick.”

“Did you just set aside another floor in the tower for the art museum?”

“Hey, Peter wanted more art and I just do what Petey-Pie says,” Tony wandered over to his bench where some of the Iron Man suit parts were waiting to be re-constructed. He had taken some damage last week when he wiped out some weapons depots.

“That is not true! And I already had that floor set aside for the cafeteria and meeting rooms for SI. I cannot shift the entire floor plan up because you wanted another floor to house art for Peter. We are continuing the art rotation we originally had planned.” She followed him over to the workbenches.

“Are you sick?” Tony backed a few feet away from Pepper.

“You know, there are only about 8,011 things I need to talk to you about,” She stressed as she leaned forward.

“Dum-E, hey stop spacing out. The Bridgeport is already machining that part,” Tony grabbed the broken piece from Dum-E and set it back down.

“The Expo is a gigantic waste of time.”

“I need you to wear a surgical mask until you’re feeling better, is that ok?”

“That’s rude.”

“Other than Peter, there’s nothing more important to me than the Expo. It’s my second primary point of concern. I don’t know why you’re-.

“The Expo is your ego gone crazy.”

“Well, that’s rude.”

“Stark Industries is in complete disarray. You understand that?”

“No, our stocks have never been higher.”

“Yes from a managerial standpoint.”

“You are-. Well, if it’s messy then let’s double back.”

“Let me give you an example. We have already awarded contracts to the wind farm people and to the biodegradable tree sack organization, which was your idea by the way. Those people are on the payroll...”

“Everything was my idea. Yeah. Don’t say ‘wind farm’, I’m already feeling windy.”

“..and you won’t make a decision.”

“I don’t care about the liberal agenda anymore. It’s boring! Boring! I’m giving you a boring alert! You do it.”

“I do what?”

“Excellent idea, you run the company.”

“I’m **_trying_** to run the company.”

“Pepper, I need you to run the company. Well, stop trying and do it.”

“You won’t give me answers…”

“I’m not asking you to try…”

“…in order to..”

“I’m asking you to physically do it. I need you to do it.”

“I am trying to do it.”

“Pepper, you’re not listening to me!”

“No, you are not listening to me!”

“I’m trying to make you CEO. Why won’t you let me?”

“Have you been drinking? I thought you stopped that when you first brought Peter home.”

“I haven’t and I did. It’s chlorophyll. I hereby irrevocably appoint you CEO of Stark Industries effective immediately. Yeah, done deal. Okay? I’ve actually given this a fair amount of thought, believe it or not. Well, after Maggie suggested it. After Stane died, I put you in place as CFO to get your feet wet and give you something familiar to jump off of. The last few months with the armor has taken up a lot of my time and I still want to focus on being there for Pete, so I think it’s time,” he deflected from his true reason, “I thought there’d be a legal issue, but actually I’m capable of appointing my successor. My successor being you.”

“But what about Peter? What happens when he’s 21?”

“He’ll be given the option of taking over after being joint CEO with you for five to ten years. I figured by that time you would want to retire anyways.”

“I don’t know what to think or say,” She stood there in shock, her red nose and droopy eyes from her cold making her look a little lost.

“Don’t think anything and say yes!”

“Uhh, ok. Yes.”

***********

Happy and Maggie made him work out with one of them at least four times a week, “You need to be in shape to be able to improve your reaction times while in the suit. JARVIS can only do so much and until he can remotely pilot the suit without you in it, I need you to get rid of the ‘Dad Bod’” Maggie had informed him when she had found out about the suit and his missions. He had complained that he had been voted the third most eligible man by People Magazine and he didn’t have a ‘Dad Bod’. “Ten years ago, maybe,” was her muttered quip, “You’re doing it or I’m having JARVIS lock you out of your suits till you do.” So he boxed with Happy and did Katas and yoga with Maggie. Peter ended up loving yoga and was surprisingly flexible. Peter definitely did not get that from him.

Maggie was in New Mexico, so he boxed with Happy in the mansion’s gym while Pepper worked on some paperwork while they waited for the notary.

“The notary’s here! Can you please come sign the transfer paperwork?”

“I’m on happy time,” Tony turned and hit Happy in the face with his elbow.

“What the hell was that?” Happy face turned red and he backed up and leaned against the corner of the ring.

“It’s called mixed martial arts and it’s been around for three weeks.”

“It’s called dirty boxing and there’s nothing new about it. I’m telling Maggie that you’re not taking this seriously.”

“All right, I’m focusing. Don’t tell Mags, I can’t live on decaf again for two weeks.” The click of another set of heels drew their attention to Pepper.

“I promise this is the only time I will ask you to sign over your company,” Pepper called out to Tony from behind the pretty redhead with a large file folder.

“I’ll be right there,” Tony turned to Happy, “Alright, put them up. Come on.” They went through some moves and Happy punched him in the shoulder.

“Come on, Boss,” Happy called out, “I need you to block.”

“I’m just testing you,” Tony shuffled and bounced back till he was by the bell and he hit the plunger, “That’s it, I’m done. What’s your name, lady?”

“Rushman, Natalie Rushman.”

“Front and center, come into the church,” She set the folder down, slipped off her heels, and got into the ring.

“Tony…” Pepper chided.

“If it pleases the court, which it does.”

“It’s no problem, Ms. Potts,” Natalie called out to Pepper and Tony stepped down and out of the ring.

“Can you give her a lesson?” Tony asked Happy as he moved backward towards Pepper while picking up the folder.

“Sure,” Happy shrugged.

“Pepper,” Tony tucked the folder under his arm and picked up his chlorophyll bottle and scooched in the same chair as Pepper. Handing her the file, he chugged some of the dark liquid.

“What? And you are all sweaty. You could have sat on that chair,” she motioned to the chair next to her.

“Who is she?”

“She is from legal. And she is potentially a very expensive sexual harassment lawsuit if you keep ogling her like that.”

“I need a new assistant after the last one failed to show up on time for the fifth day in a row,” Tony flipped through the file, initialing boxes.

“Yes, and I have three excellent potential candidates that are cleared by JARVIS and ready to meet you.”

“I don’t have time to meet, I need someone now. I feel like it’s her. I’m without Maggie for a few weeks and Happy doesn’t have the time to help me out.”

“You mean the patience,” Pepper muttered, “and you have plenty of time since you are making me CEO. JARVIS sent me your schedule and you are completely clear.”

“Ah, betrayal by own AI.”

“Just looking out for your well-being, Sir,” JARVIS spoke from his phone on the table, “Miss Maggie is familiar with Ms. Rushman.”

“Really!?” Peper and Tony spoke at the same time.

“Yes, she trains with her when Peter is in school and Ms. Rushman is free. But this was all before she took the job at SI, so I am unsure how the arrangement will continue.”

From across the room in the ring, Happy continued his briefing, “You ever boxed before?”

“I have, yes,” Natalie replied

“What, like Tae Bo? Booty Boot Camp? Crunch? Something like that?” Happy asked.

“You know something else, don’t you J?” Tony asked as he brought up the interface on the table next to him. “How do you spell your name, Natalie?”

Natalie grimaced and rolled her eyes, she turned away from Happy, “R-U-S-H-M-A-N.”

“What are you doing? Googling her now?” Pepper asked as she held the folder and wiggled, trying to get comfortable as she could with a sweaty Tony taking up her space.

“I thought I was ogling her,” Natalie’s file flashed up and Tony flipped through the information with his hands. “Wow. Very impressive.”

“You’re so predictable, you know that” Pepper finally gave up and settled.

“What is that supposed to mean? She’s fluent in French, Italian, Russian, Latin… who speaks Latin? And she has several marksmen and martial arts certificates.”

“No one speaks Latin, it’s a dead language,” Pepper reaches over Tony’s shoulder as she selected a folder labeled schooling.

“It is considered a dead language, but it is still used by the Vatican and the Catholic Church,” JARVIS spoke up from Tony’s phone, “Today it’s probably only fluently spoken by about 200 hundred people.”

“Hmmm, she modeled in Tokyo,” Modeling photos flashed and Tony flipped through them.

“How does Maggie know her?” Pepper asked she leaned into Tony looking at the accounting and legal degrees that Natalie held.

“Miss Maggie met her a few years ago in New York after her kidnapping. Ms. Rushman checks out and is free from tentacles, Sir.”

“I need her. She’s got everything I need,” Tony declared.

Happy tired of the distraction shuffled and adjusted his stance, “Rule number one, never take your eyes off your opponent,” he declared as he took a swing.

Natalie grabbed his wrist and flipped him over her shoulder and Happy just lay there breathing heavily and in shock.

“Oh, my god! Happy!” Pepper yelled as she jumped up and ran over to the ring.

“I just slipped,” Happy groaned from the ground.

“No wonder Maggie is training with her on the sly. Damn!” Tony declared, going over to the bell and ringing it, “looks like a TKO to me!”

Natalie crawled out of the ring and put back on her shoes. Picking up the file from the table, she checked that all the necessary initialing was done and then approached Tony, “I just need your impression.”

“Umm, you have a quiet reserve, I don’t know, old soul…?

“I meant your fingerprint, Mr. Stark.”

“Oh, right,” Tony reached for the file and put his thumbprint next to his signature on the last page. “All done! It’s yours for the next 15-20 years, Ms. Potts!”

Natalie took the file back, “Is that all, Mr. Stark?”

“No.”

“Yes, thank you, Ms. Rushman,” Pepper glared at Tony, “Thank you very much.”

“I’m calling Maggie.”

“No Tony.”

*************

After eating at the diner, Peter had a whole cheeseburger, a basket of fries, and a sundae the size of his head, they headed back to Jane’s lab.

“Are we going out to the desert tonight, or is that tomorrow?” Maggie asked as she turned and parked behind the building.

“Tonight, please!” Peter shouted from the back seat.

“Tonight, well every night. Jane wants to show Doctor Selvig the anomaly as soon as possible since he’s leaving next week. It’s been unpredictable, so we’ve been going out every night since we got here last month,” Darcy answered as she unbuckled and they all got out of the car.

“Yay! I can’t wait!” Peter yelled as he ran into the building. Maggie and Darcy followed behind with food from the diner for Jane and Erik.

“I knew that ice cream was a bad idea,” Maggie complained as she entered the building and took in the maps on the old chalkboard and the equipment and SUV taking up most of the space.

“Maggie, can we take a picture with the Space Science Truck?” Peter asked as he poked his head from the open sunroof of the modified SUV.

“You have to ask Doctor Foster if that’s ok and we only send it to your Dad and JARVIS, no school friends.”

“What about Ned? He’s not a school friend,” Peter asked about his friend that was in Queens that lived in the building with his Aunt and Uncle.

“It’s ok,” Jane came out of the room in the back with Erik behind her. She took the food from Maggie and turned to Peter, “You can send it to your friend Ned too.”

“Only if you don’t tell him where we are, you know the rules,” Maggie reminded him. She didn’t want their location tracked and the paparazzi to descend or the kidnappers to find them.

“I know, Maggie. I’m not a baby,” Peter complained as he slowly dropped himself from the lifted SUV. She had no idea how he had managed to get in it in the first place.

“I know, hun, we just have to be careful,” she reached him and helped him the rest of the way down. “Go ask if Darcy would be nice enough to take the picture for us.”

“DARCY!” Peter screamed as he ran back outside.

“Ugh, no more ice-cream,” Maggie muttered as she sat down at the table with Erik and Jane. “I made a terrible mistake and now I’m regretting it,” she tells the two scientists. “I should know better from trial and error that sugar in that eight-year-old budding genius is the worst idea in the world.”

“It’s ok, Miss,” JARVIS spoke from her phone, “you’re just upset that you cannot leave him with Sir to deal with the sugar rush and resulting crash.”

“Shhh, JARVIS, you’re giving out all my evil ways.”

“I would never, Miss,” her phone flashed at the AI’s amusement.

“What is that?” Jane asked as she bit at her sandwich.

“I am JARVIS, Mr. Stark’s Intelligent Artificial User Interface, Doctor Foster.”

“Oh! I’ve heard about you. You seem much more developed than the article that I read stated.”

“Yes, I’ve come a long way since then,” JARVIS deflected. It was true, he had come a long way since Tony had announced the development of the intelligent user interface, but in reality, JARVIS had always been an Artificial Intelligence. Tony had brushed the truth because he knew that it would cause panic if the world knew what JARVIS really was.

“Maggie! I found Darcy!” Peter came running back in, covered in sand and dirt.

“What were you doing?” Maggie asked as she stood up and he ran into her, “You look like you rolled in the sand and dirt like a puppy.”

“Uhh, I went around the car and fell,” Peter looked down at his shoes.

Maggie knelt and felt his arms and looked for cuts and bruises and not finding any she breathed a sigh of relief. “Good thing there’s a chill and you’re wearing your coat,” she observed.

“It’s the dry air that makes it feel warmer, Maggie,” Peter said as he smiled up at her, “It could be the same temperature at Aunt May’s, but with the moisture from the ocean it feels colder.”

“Look at you, being all smart,” Darcy said as she came up behind Peter.

“We studied weather in the after school science camp,” Peter blushed, “I just remember stuff.”

“Hey, buddy you’re smart,” Darcy praised, “I should know since I hang out with smart people all the time,” she gestured to Jane and Erik who were still eating their food.

“Darcy, can you take the picture?” Maggie asked as she handed her phone to her friend, “or just hold it up so JARVIS can take the picture.”

“I can take a picture, my phone isn’t that old. Not all of us have fancy self-picture taking phones,” Darcy grumbled as Maggie and Peter stood in front of the driver’s door of the SUV, “It still needs someone to hold it.”

Everyone laughed and Darcy took the picture at the right moment, capturing Maggie and Peter’s joy.

************

They left right before dark to head out to the desert to the location that Jane and Darcy had spotted the anomalies. They parked and waited as Peter snacked on some granola that Maggie had bought at the airport and Jane scanned from the open moon roof with her handmade Magnetometer.

“So, what’s this anomaly of yours supposed to look like?” Erik asked as he moved to stand next to Jane.

“It’s a little different each time. Once it looked like, I don’t know, melted stars pooling in a corner of the sky. But last week it was a rolling rainbow ribbon-,” Jane replied as she scanned the horizon and checked her device intermittently.

“’ Racing ‘round Orion?’ I’ve always said you should have been a poet,” Erik teased as Jane tried to rein in her excitement but her shaking hands and rapid checking contradicted her efforts.

“Can we go outside?” Peter asked, buckled in his seat in the back corner near the window, Maggie next to him. “I can’t see anything from here.”

“Soon,” Maggie looked up to the front where Darcy is sitting, “How far are we off from the last location you guys saw the anomaly?”

“About a mile, but it changes each time,” Jane replied as she continued scanning. “Darcy, can you pass me my gloves, please.”

Darcy passed up the men’s sized gloves and shifted in the seat, “We usually see it right away or later at night. I’m hoping for Peter’s sake it’s early,” Darcy teases.

“Hey! I’m not a baby, I go to bed at a normal time,” Peter grumbles.

“I’m hoping for an early sighting too. I’m no longer the young man I used to be when I knew your father, Jane,” Erik looked down at Jane and the large gloves, “He’d be so proud if he could see you now.”

“Thank you,” Jane smiled sadly at the gloves and then up at Erik.

“For what?”

“The benefit of the doubt. Flying out here and spending some time reviewing my research with me,” Jane answered as she scanned the sky.

An hour later they’re still in the same place and Peter and Maggie were sitting out on the desert floor with a blanket.

“Can I turn on the radio?” Darcy asked from the driver’s seat.

“Sure, if you like rocking out to KFRM ‘All agriculture, all the time,’” Jane quipped as she flipped through her black notebook, the pencil back in her hair, the laptops and monitoring equipment beeping steadily around her.

“Yeah, no,” Darcy shook her head and pulled out her phone to check the time.

“The anomalies are always precipitated by geomagnetic storms,” Jane flipped to a page in her notebook and tilted it so Erik could see it. “The last seventeen occurrences have been predictable to the minute after a solar flare... I just don't understand, there was a flare earlier today.”

Darcy pocketed her phone and looked at the mirror on her left and squinted at it. As she adjusted it, a glowing cloud started to expand over the north-east horizon. “Everyone back in the car!” She screamed before starting the SUV and Peter and Maggie scrambled into the back of the open SUV. Doors slammed and Jane shushed Darcy as she flipped through more pages of her notes. The SUV rattled as the lights and equipment start to flicker and readouts populated the screens.

“There’s got to be some new variable…,” Jane mutters, “or an equipment malfunction.” The noises got louder.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your equipment,” Darcy buckled her seatbelt and checked on Peter and Maggie, making sure they were strapped in.

“I think you guys want to see this!” Peter yelled as he looked out the window, “It’s sooo cool!”

The clouds churned and waves of energy lit up the insides and all but Peter stared in shock, dumbfounded.

“Holy Shatner,” Jane’s disbelief echoed in her voice as she clutched for the video recorder in her pocket.

“That’s your ‘subtle’ aurora?!” Erik shouted as he pointed to the building clouds.

“No! Yes!? Let’s go, Darcy!” Jane shouted as she adjusted the digital camera and started filming.

Erik and Jane quickly jostled for their seats and Jane hung out the window recording as Darcy drove towards the building clouds. Winds howled around the SUV and a spiral descended from the building clouds, like a glowing tornado. Roaring like a thousand freight trains came from the anomaly and with a flash of light it touched down in the middle of the desert.

“We gotta get closer!” Jane shouted over the noise, “I need a magnetic reading!”

“Yeah, right! Good one! Oh god, you’re serious… we have a baby on board!” Darcy shouted back at Jane.

“You want those college credits or not?”

“Keep the credits, I’ll intern at Burger King and live to tell Tony Stark I didn’t kill his kid!”

Darcy and Jane fought for control of the wheel as the winds whipped the vehicle like it was on a spring.

“Oh, my god!” Maggie shouted as a huge bolt of lightning punched down in the center of the funnel cloud before fading.

Darcy slammed on the breaks and the SUV skidded as the ABS tried to stop the vehicle. Suddenly there was a person in front of them and Jane struggled to turn the wheel but they still end up hitting them on the passenger side before they skidded a bit more and stopped.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Maggie repeated as she clutched Peter to herself.

Darcy was the first to unbuckle and the others quickly followed as they raced around to the prone figure on the ground.

“I think it was legally your fault,” Darcy accused Jane as they all stood around the blond man.

“He looks like Hercules,” Peter said from a few feet away clutching Maggie’s arm.

“Someone get the first aid kit,” Jane called out next to the man’s head with Erik protectively right behind her.

“Come on, big guy. Do me a favor and don't be dead, okay? Open your eyes and look at me,” Jane pleaded.

Darcy ran back with the first aid kit and approached Jane with it held in front of her, “Wow! Does he need CPR? Because I totally know CPR.”

“His eyes-“ Jane trailed off holding the flashlight to his face.

“-are beautiful,” Darcy said dreamily as Maggie and Peter snorted behind her.

“-are dilating,” Jane finished.

“We should get him to a hospital,” Erik interjected.

“After we get a reading on the storm-?” Jane sounding hopeful as she turned to Erik.

“Immediately, Jane.”

Jane nodded and turned back to the man, “Where did he come from?”

Maggie, Darcy, and Erik all shrug their shoulders and looked up at the sky.

“Space,” Peter answered.

**********

Maggie watched as Jane looked at her meter and then the sky before the blond man started to groan.

“Father-,” he muttered and rolled his head back and forth before his eyes opened and he looked up at Jane bending over him. “Who-? Where am I?” He blinked a few times and clenched his eyes closed.

“In the middle of a New Mexico desert on Earth,” Maggie spoke as she pushed Peter behind her and approached the prone man pulling out her batons and shrugging off her coat, “Do you know your name?”

“Sigyn?” He muttered, “I must be dead if I am hearing your voice. Is this Valhalla?”

“Umm, no. I’m Maggie and you’re not in Valhalla,” she felt a twinge at her middle name being spoken. “With the blond locks and beard, you must be Thor,” she joked darkly.

“Yes. This must be Valhalla. Or Hel. Probably Hel. I’ve dishonored my birthright,” he continued to mutter with his eyes closed.

“Wow! That’s even better than Hercules,” Peter marveled, “If this is Thor, where’s his hammer?”

“Hammer!” Shouted ‘Thor’ as he shot up and staggered to his feet and Maggie pulled Jane back to safety.

“Yeah, we can tell you’re hammered,” Darcy threw out as she stood next to Jane, “That’s pretty obvious,” as they all watched him stagger around shouting for his hammer.

Having been pulled back, Jane noticed the pattern on the ground, “Erik, look at this.” They all turned and looked at the pattern on the ground and Jane and Erik exchange a look. “We’ve got to move fast before anything changes!” Excitement rolling off of her as she pulled out her camera and started taking pictures, the rest of them moving back to give her room, “We need soil samples, light readings, everything!” She pulled out a light meter from another pocket, took some readings, and started jotting notes with a flashlight in her mouth.

“What is he doing?” Peter asked pointing to ‘Thor’.

“Jane, we need to get him to a hospital,” Erik interjected as she pulled out a canister and took a soil sample.

“Not right now. It’ll take too long,” Jane said distractedly, “County is an hour away from here. We’ll drop him off after we’re done,” She kept taking readings and notes. “See, he’s fine,” she pointed with her pencil.

Thor stood about twenty feet away, shouting up at the stars. “Is he saying Heimdall?” Peter asked as he looked up at Maggie, “Isn’t he like the gatekeeper or the protector of the Bifrost or something in Norse mythology?” Maggie shrugged.

“Okay, just leave me here and everyone else can take him to the hospital,” Jane responded after Erik gave her a disappointed stern look.

“You expect us to leave you here. **_Alone._** In the middle of the desert with no transportation or way for us to easily find you. **_At night_** ,” Erik’s voice rose in agitation.

“Yeah, I don’t think so, Jane,” Maggie replied as ‘Thor’ made his way back to them.

“What realm is this?!” Anger and aggression rolling off of him.

“It’s alright, my friend. We’re going to get you some help,” Erik assured ‘Thor’ calmly as he reached for his shoulder.

“You’re on Midgard, Thor,” Peter stated loudly from behind Maggie with her now telescoped batons.

Thor paused and turned toward the eight-year-old and started toward Peter while Darcy reached in the inner pocket of her coat.

“Midgard! Of all the bloody places to send me, Midgard!” Thor shouted at the sky, “Heimdall!”

“Erik, just back away. Peter, come here,” Jane gestured for the boy, drawing him away from the agitated man.

Maggie stepped in front of ‘Thor’, as she flicked the switch to a lower setting and braced herself for a confrontation. “You dare threaten Thor with such silly sticks,” Thor growled at her.

Before Maggie could attack, Darcy fired her taser, hitting him in the back, the giant collapsing and convulsing on the ground unconscious.

“I had it, Darcy,” Maggie scolded as she rolled him over and checked his pulse, worried that the shock may have stopped his heart like it did Stane’s. Breathing a sigh of relief when she found it, she pulled out her flashlight and checked his pupils for dilation. “He appears to be ok, but we need to haul him to the hospital now. Pack it up, Jane. Peter, I want you in the passenger seat. I’ll sit in back with ‘Thor’ here.” She collapsed her sticks and put one in each back pocket and helped Erik drag ‘Thor’ to the truck.

“Next time you decide to taser someone, do us a favor and make sure they’re already inside the truck,” Erik scolded Darcy and he pulled Thor in as Maggie maneuvered his legs. Getting him in the back, Maggie pulled out her sticks, sat, and then buckled herself into the seat.

“Come on Jane!” Erik yelled at the woman as he took Peter’s seat. Jane was still bent over the patterns on the ground. She got up, ran, and sat behind Peter.

As they drove away towards the hospital, a dark hole in the sky opened and an object burns across the sky before hitting the ground, creating a crater the size of an Olympic swimming pool. The glimmer of silver from the center of the deep hole and the sizzle of lightning from the sky flashed as the dust settled in the middle of a New Mexico desert.

*********

Maggie had them drop her and Peter off at their car on the way to the hospital, “I’m not endangering Peter anymore tonight,” Maggie said as she pulled the sleepy child out of the passenger seat. “Good luck and let me know how it goes. We’ll see you tomorrow, I’ll bring breakfast!”

Peter and she found the small upscale hotel easily, checking in with the sleepy attendant, showered, and crawled into bed. She sent a quick text to Tony telling them everything was ok (which was kind of a lie). _What a big freaking_ mess, she thought.

Right before she fell asleep, Peter spoke from the other queen bed, “Do you think it was really Thor, Maggie? Because that would be really cool! If there’s a Thor then maybe there are more gods and goddesses.”

“I don’t know Pete but maybe we’ll find out in the morning,” she replied sleepily.

“Ok. Love you.”

“Love you too, buddy.”

*******

The next morning she picked up doughnuts from the local bakery and took Leo Jr with her to Jane’s lab, finding Erik drinking a cup of coffee surveying the desert, deep in thought. Jane was sitting at the makeshift table soldering some small piece of equipment and Darcy appeared to be putting up print offs on the old chalkboard.

“Morning, everyone!” Maggie greeted as she sat the doughnuts on the table and put JR on the kitchen counter so she could make some coffee, “Anyone need some espresso? Best you’ll ever get,” she advertised as she pulled a steam pitcher from her bag along with a small box of almond milk, she was lactose intolerant.

“You brought Leonardo de Espresso with you?!” Darcy called excitedly from across the room as she continued hanging blown-up pictures from last night.

“No, Dad made her Leo JR and he travels with us when we leave home,” Peter said with half a doughnut in his mouth, “Dad calls him Backpack Leonardo JR since it has built-in backpack straps to carry it around with. He also made sure to anchor and lock the bean hopper with sliding and lockable panels for the steam wand, electrical cord, and water hookups. Maggie said he needs to market it but he doesn’t want to.”

“It would be great for food trucks, concession stands, and small restaurants,” Maggie chimed in as she started steaming milk after hooking up the water and power. Erik and Jane both stared in disbelief, “Lattes anyone?” Maggie offered.

“Maggie and Dad take their coffee seriously, don’t mind her,” Peter stuffed another doughnut in his mouth.

“Rude,” Maggie poured her second double shot into one of the mugs that had been on the shelf and poured in the steamed milk, “And that’s the last doughnut. I’m not dealing with your sugar high today.”

“Umm, I’ll take one,” Jane raised her hand and pointed to the far corner, “there’s some milk in the fridge over there.”

“I’ll stick with the black coffee,” Erik shuffled over to one of the computer monitors and noticed the display reading ‘J. Foster Algorithm Analysis’. He hummed, proud of his friend's daughter, “We might want to perform a spectral analysis.”

“We?”

“I flew all the way out here, so I might as well make myself useful,” Erik shrugged as he sipped his coffee.

“You know what would be really useful? Do you still have that friend of LIGO?”

“She was more than a friend-.” Erik hid behind his mug.

“Could you call in a favor?”

“You don’t think this was just a magnetic storm?” He set his cup down.

“If I'm right, their observatory must have picked up gravitational waves during last night's event.

“Meaning?” Erik asked as Jane headed over to a computer monitor.

“Meaning these anomalies might signify something bigger,” Jane replied as she brought up some data.

“How big are we talking about?”

Jane motioned to the footage on the monitor and they watch as the last of the anomaly’s clouds disappeared into the night sky, there appeared to be a blister in space, bulging out in convex and covered with stars. “I think the lensing around the edges is characteristic of an Einstein-Rosen Bridge.”

“A what?” Darcy asked as she tacked up another photo and grabbed a doughnut.

“I thought you were a science major,” Erik stated as he grabbed a chocolate sprinkled doughnut.

“Political Science,” Darcy drank from her mug before setting it next to Peter, who had sneaked another doughnut.

Erik looked over at Jane, confused and Jane shrugged, “She was the only applicant.”

“It’s a wormhole,” Peter chimed in between bites, “a connection between two different points of space-time.”

Darcy stared at the kid next to her, “You’re too smart.”

“Am not, we learned about it-.”

“In afterschool science camp,” everyone finished for him.

Peter huffed and went to take another bite before Maggie plucked it from his hand and ate it, “No more sugar.”

“Erik, look-“ Jane pulled out a print off and pointed to something on the page, “What do you see here?”

“Stars.”

“Yes, but not our stars,” Jane hurried over to the makeshift table and spread out a star chart. “This is the star alignment for our quadrant this time of year. So unless Ursa Minor decided to take the day off, those are someone else’s constellations.”

Darcy put up another photo from the printer and squinted at it, “Hey, check this out!”

Everyone went over to the board and looked at the picture she pointed to, “Is that-?” Erik rubbed his eyes and leaned in closer.

“I think I left something at the hospital!” Jane backed away and grabbed her coat as she ran out the door.

“Is that a guy?” Peter asked as he chewed on another doughnut.

“Yeah, I think so,” Maggie came up behind him as the others ran out the door, “Let’s go get some real food so you don’t bounce like a ball the rest of the day. Then we’ll go to the grocery to get some food for them. There’s nothing in the fridge but milk and expired lunch meat.”

“Eww, sounds like a scary Uncle Rhodey story from college.”

“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?” Maggie replied as she grabbed the spare key for the lab and she and Peter followed after the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***Remember that Nat was never seen by anyone other than Maggie, so Tony, Pepper, and Happy have no idea who she really is! I must admit that fact-checking some of the science is a bit hard. A lot of it would make more sense if the movies had added one or two more factual elements. I guess I'll get more into it when we do Tony and his atom collider.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Thanks for all your comments, love, and kudos! <3 ~M.


	4. Cerulean Revelations and Glorious Power

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the truth comes out, it's sometimes too devastating for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, the Angst. I hate thou.
> 
> I needed to post this, otherwise, I'll just keep changing and editing and it'll be as long as the last and possibly the next chapter...
> 
> Enjoy! ~M.

Frigga had sensed the seiðr of Asgard shift to something more powerful than she had perceived in a very long time. Troubled, she ran to the window of her chambers to see the explosion of light from the Bifrost Observatory light up the city below her. “Oh, no! This is not happening again!”

She pulled off her dressing robe and put on the battle armor she hadn’t donned since before Thor was born. Sheathing her sword that had hung above the mantle, she grabbed the shield from above her bed and teleported herself to the bridge in front of the machine.

Her husband strode out, Gungnir in his hand and a discomposed look on his face. “Wife, I see you have come to meet me,” he stated as he continued walking.

“I was afraid of invasion, or perhaps another child of mine being banished!” She strode in front of him and planted herself, “Please tell me you did not send another of my children away.”

“I wish I could say that,” at that, he looked forlorn and troubled, “He put his brother and friends in peril and pushed Asgard to the brink of war! Since the death of one of the few people who could mitigate Thor’s impulsiveness and channel his fervor into good, he’s been impulsive, brash, and indifferent to his responsibilities!” Odin paused for a moment to collect himself.

“But he was not like his sister! He did not lay destruction across the universe and then when defeated, fought to pursue death!” She wanted to throw her shield at him and beat him with her fists.

She thought when they made the treaty with the Infinity Mother and Vanaheim that she would never have to experience the loss of a child again.

“We discussed his behavior, you and I agreed to take a page from Vanaheim. We crown him King while we continued on to advise and counsel him to make him into a strong and worthy King of Asgard.” He paused and took a deep breath and moved around his battle-ready wife. Pausing he turned back to her, grief evident in every line of his face, “We were wrong. He needs more than guidance. He needs to learn this lesson in humility.”

“You can bring him back…,” but she knew that it was empty hope. The amount of seiðr that Odin had channeled and the use of Asgard to reinforce it, made that a hope in futility.

“I am sorry, but there are some things that I cannot undo.”

Frigga wept in sorrow, her shield dropped with a clang to the bridge and she felt herself gathered in Odin’s arms. “I too grieve the loss of our son. His fate is in his own hands now.”

************

Loki watched as his mother wept and his father comforted her. He had not seen her this upset since he had come home a week after Sigyn’s death with a broken arm and a fractured eye socket from another one of Thor’s adventures in trying to distract him. Feeling uncomfortable, he teleported himself to his rooms and stripped himself from his armor, and changed into some clean garments.

Sorting through the pile of discarded armor, he searched for his teal gem. A shock of grief went through him when he realized that it had been mounted on the vambrace destroyed by the Frost Giant. He sat heavily on the floor and frantically searched again, hoping that he was just not seeing it.

“Please, please, please…!” Tears ran down his cheeks and his breathing picked up in a panic as he flung chain mail and greaves and his heavy over-coat in grief. It was one of the last things Sigyn had given him. After she found it tucked in a piece of leather wrapped around his wrist, his mother had it mounted in his left vambrace. “She meant for it to be a token, you should keep it safe and it’ll keep you safe.” 

He sat there waiting for himself to wake up. Everything seemed suddenly surreal and unbearable and he just couldn’t do this anymore. As he worked through his grief it turned to anger and frustration. Flipping out his favorite knife, he pricked his fingers and pressed. Blood weeping from the tips of his fingers he searched for a change in the color. Taking a deep breath he tried to transform himself, to lose his pale Asgardian form, to lose the glamour.

**Nothing.**

Frustrated, he threw the knife across the room, and with a wave of his hand, the pocket dimension absorbed it. He needed answers and he knew the easiest way to get it. Getting up he strode from the room, slamming the door behind him.

*************

Making his way through the palace he heard Sif and the Warriors talking in the healing room. Voices echoed the chamber and the crackle of the fire drew him in.

“We should have never let him go,” Volstagg muttered as he rubbed his blackened arm.

“At least he’s only banished, not dead. Which is what we’d all be if that guard hadn’t told Odin where we’d gone,” Fandral said as he leaned heavily to one side, still in pain from the ice shards that had rammed through his body.

“How did the guard even know?” Volstagg looked around to the others.

“I told him,” Loki stepped into the light, “and I should kill him for taking so long.”

“What?!” Fandral jostled his body in shock, moaning in pain.

“I told him to go to Father after we’d left. Instead, he disregarded the severity of the situation, like they always do when I give orders, and took his precious time,” anger and disgust coloring his voice.

Everyone stared at him in surprise and disbelief, nothing but the crackle of the fire interrupting the silence.

“With no voice of reason to force Thor to see what an irresponsible bilgesnipe he was being, I had to do something. All you four do is go along with his mad schemes and ‘adventures’ and always just barely get out alive. Someone always gets hurt…,” frustration making him pace and reach for the missing gem.

“Please, Loki. You’re the only one who can help Thor now. Please go to the All-Father and convince him to change his mind!” Sif begged.

“And if I do, then what? I love Thor more dearly than any of you, but you know what he is. He’s arrogant, reckless, and dangerous. You saw how he was today! Is that what Asgard needs from its king?!” He tried to rein in his anger. _Can’t they see? How are they so blind?_ He thought while realizing how things had changed since Sigyn died.

After her mother had disappeared, Sigyn had gone to mitigate a dispute in the South with a few of her Mother’s trusted advisors. There was an ambush and she was killed. He had been on Asgard at the time and after her death and entombment, he never returned to Vanaheim.

Things at the Asgardian palace had become strained. The servants and guards often disregarded Loki’s requests and orders due to their antipathy of Loki’s use of seiðr. It wasn’t the fact that he used it, it was because he used it as his primary defense. The entire royal family and several of the nobles possessed seiðr but usually, only the woman of Asgard used it prodigiously. The rest of them used brute strength and weapons.

So he used tricks to enact little bits of revenge and used his biting wit to deflect from his grief. 

Then Thor became more reckless. Endangering them all more and more. Loki had been thunderstruck when Father declared that Thor should rule.

He sighed and watched the others glance at each other, “I’m sorry. I’m as devastated as all of you, but Father called upon the powers of Asgard. It’s beyond my abilities to change anything,” he lied.

He turned at their downcast expressions and left the room, ignoring Hogun’s stare.

He still blamed Loki for not being there to protect his future Queen.

************

Working his way deeper and deeper in the catacombs of the palace, he heard ghostly echoes of children playing and shouts of laughter. Turning, he thought he heard his name called and a flash of teal cloth whip around the corner. Running after it, he ran abruptly into the door of the chamber that housed the Realm’s most important treasures. Placing his palm on the door, he felt the lingering presence of Sigyn’s seiðr. She had cast a spell when they had been children to get them into the Vault without anyone noticing, bypassing the wards that had been placed by his mother. Taking a deep breath he felt the tendrils of the repairs to the wards she had made, after they had been caught entering, as punishment. He manipulated the spell to allow him to slip in. They had cast together so many times that it was as easy as manipulating his wards.

Making his way down the stairs he drifted past the other artifacts and approached the Casket of Ancient Winters on its plinth. Taking a deep breath, he lowered his hands slowly to the sides of the azure box, the chill biting and aggressive. Finally, the tips of his fingers touched the frigid surface and his hands slowly seeped to a cerulean, and markings appeared in swirls, twirling and twisting under his sleeves. He felt his glamor give way and an unknown blanket like feeling lifted from his shoulders.

“Stop!” The All Father’s voice echoed the chamber.

It was a relief and a betrayal to realize suddenly that he was not who he thought he was. Perhaps it was a consolation that Sigyn was gone and was unable to see the monster that he truly was.

Grasping the sides he lifted the weight and felt the power of the Casket mingle with his seiðr. The pull was hypnotic. “Am I cursed?” he grit out between the tears of grief and pain of the truth.

“No. Put the Casket down.”

Loki took a deep breath and pushed himself to release both physically and metaphysically, the pull hypnotic and alluring, “What am I?”

“You’re my son,” the King spoke with certainty.

“What more than that?” Odin looked at him wearily and burdened with a great weight. Suspicion filled Loki’s thoughts and a terrible notion crossed his mind, “The Casket wasn’t the only thing you took from Jotunheim that day, was it?”

“No.” The All-Father paused and centered himself before elucidating. 

“In the aftermath of the battle, I went into the Temple and found a baby. Small for a Giant’s offspring. Abandoned, suffering, left to die. Laufey’s son,” Odin sounded sorrowful.

Loki reeled at the revelation. His whole life. A lie. “Why? You were knee-deep in Jotun blood. Why would you take me?” Disbelief at something so heinous.

“You were an innocent child,” Odin pleaded as Loki appeared more and more hurt and angry.

“You took me for a purpose, what was it,” he demanded.

Silence filled the chamber and Loki came to the darkest of conclusions. “You needed a sacrifice for the treaty with the Infinity Mother. You couldn’t allow your precious son to marry and be second fiddle to the Queen of Vanaheim! So you saw an opportunity and took it.”

“I thought we could unite all our kingdoms one day, bring about an alliance, and bring about a permanent peace. **_Through you_**. But those plans no longer matter,” Odin said in defeat as he trailed off in grief.

“So I am no more than another stolen relic, locked up here until you might have use of me.”

“Why do you twist my words?”

“You could have told me what I was from the beginning. Why didn’t you?”

“You are my son. My blood. I wanted only to protect you from the truth.”

“Because I am the monster parents tell their children about at night?!”

“Don’t…”

“It all makes sense now. Why you favored Thor all these years…”

“Listen…” Odin swayed.

“…Because no matter how much you claim to “love” me, you could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the Throne of Asgard!” Loki spat out as he paced towards the swaying King, furious, tears streaming down his cheeks and his fists clenched.

“Listen to me!”

Loki strode past him and approached the doors, not noticing the All Father’s failing health.

“Loki!”

Loki turned and watched as Odin shifted out of sync with the rest of the world and his moving limbs left a trail, the effect of Odinsleep taking over the aged King. He fell against the wall, his face contorted in pain as he collapsed.

Shocked, Loki hurried over and reached out to grasp the collapsed All-Father, but stopped when he remembered what he was.

“GUARDS! GUARDS! YOUR KING NEEDS YOU!”

***************

His mother sat next to the All Father’s bedside holding the sleeping King’s hand, looking paler than Loki had ever seen either of them. The space around the bed shimmered and warped from the effects of the Odinsleep.

His mother looked up from her vigil and took a moment to collect her thoughts. “I asked him to be honest with you from the beginning. There should be no secrets in a family,” she said softly.

“So why did he lie?”

“He kept the truth from you so that you would never feel different. You are in every way our son, Loki, and we, your family. You must know that,” She stressed.

Loki breathed through his sorrow and observed the grief in his mother’s face.

“You can speak to him, he can see and hear us, even now,” she softly said as she brushed Odin’s hair back from his face.

“How long will it last?”

“I don’t know. This time is different. We were unprepared,” her sorrow coloring her voice.

“I never get used to seeing him like this. One of the most powerful beings in the Nine Realms lying helpless until his body is restored.”

“But he’s put it off for so long now, I fear…” Tears dripped from her lashes and Loki took her hand, offering her some comfort.

“You’re a good son. I’m sorry for all the grief that you’ve had to live,” his mother paused as she wiped her eyes again, “She loved you from the beginning, you know. Even as a child she saw no one else,” she smiled in memory, “Thor was so upset that one time she ignored him for weeks when he pushed you into the bushes of the family garden.” She laughed sadly at the memory, “we never chose you for her, **_she_** made that decision for us. The Mother was so angry, but Sigyn refused to change her mind.” His mother smiled and squeezed his hand.

Loki sat there breathing through the pain of the memories and the overwhelming grief. He didn’t know how to feel anymore.

“We mustn’t lose hope that your father will return to us. And your brother.”

“What hope is there for Thor?” He questioned, concerned for his mother’s optimism.

“There’s always a purpose to everything your father does. Thor may yet find a way home,” with a determined look on her face.

Troubled by the revelation, he rose and headed towards the doorway. As he reached the open doorway, the clatter of armored Einherjar Guards marched to stand in front of him. Leary of the attention paid to him, he stepped back, tensing in preparation for a confrontation.

“Thor is banished. The line of succession falls to you. Until he awakens, I yield the throne to you. Asgard is yours, Prince Loki.” His mother intones and the Einherjar kneel before him, presenting him with Gungnir. “Make your father proud.”

Reaching out he grasped the ancient relic of the throne. The power of Asgard shifted and he felt it respond to his seiðr.

It felt glorious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah! This part was difficult for me to write, poor Lokikins. To find out you are not who you thought you were and to think you were used as a sacrifice so your other sibling could stay home and live the posh life. I'd be pissed too. But hey, we're given more clues! Yay! 
> 
> I'm going to edit the next chapter and we'll see if I get it posted forthwith! 
> 
> Thanks for reading, commenting, and kudos. <3 ~M.


	5. Zapping Agents and Smashing Atoms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get a little more complicated in New Mexico and Tony builds some shit with his Rhodey Bear and Natashalie Rushanoff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look! Another!

Maggie and Peter wandered around the store picking up groceries for the group.

“Can we have spaghetti tonight for dinner?” Peter asked as they walked past the pasta.

“That sounds like a good idea, maybe some garlic bread and some sort of salad. I also think we need some breakfast things and snacks for you that don’t make you into the Energizer Bunny.”

They paid for the food and headed back to Jane’s lab, “Oh, it looks like they’re back,” Maggie said as she parked.

Entering the building with several grocery bags they found that the others had gone and brought Thor back. He was now wearing something other than the weird pajamas that they found him in, well at least pants. Darcy and Jane seemed to be fascinated with his muscles. “Oh this isn’t going to be good,” Maggie muttered as she set the food down.

“You know, for a crazy homeless guy, he’s pretty cut,” Darcy says quietly to Maggie as she sat down, “Hey, sorry I tased you!” She shouted across the room at Thor.

“Really, Darce?” Maggie muttered. They both watched as he wandered around without a shirt on, holding a t-shirt with a sticky name tag on it. He approached Jane who had tried to distract herself with some work, a questioning look on his face.

“Oh! Excuse me!” Jane turned and bumped into him, “Oh. My ex.” She explained as she ripped it off the shirt and crumpled it as Thor stared at her. “They’re the only clothes I had that’ll fit you, sorry.”

“They will suffice,” He said as he pulled it on and turned to look at the chalkboard with all the pictures taped to it.

“You would think he would be a little more grateful,” Maggie muttered at Darcy sarcastically. “You guys did hit him with the truck but you did drop him at the hospital and then gave him some clothes.”

“True,” Darcy said as she fiddled with her phone, trying to take a discreet picture, ignoring the sarcasm.

“Stop it, Darcy!” Maggie hissed.

“Fine, I won’t post it on Facebook, but can I at least have one for myself?”

Maggie groaned and rolled her eyes as they watched Erik and Jane talk with Thor. Peter wandered over and Maggie pulled him into her lap and they watched as Thor followed Jane around a little too closely.

“This mortal form has grown weak!” Thor declared.

“Somebody get the mortal a Pop-Tart,” Jane retorted as she shook her head and pocketed her notebook.

“Oooh! I’m hungry too, Maggie,” Peter turned and looked up at her, “can I have a Pop-Tart?”

Thor noticed the three of them and came over to their table and bowed shallowly to Maggie and Peter. Bowed? “I apologize for my behavior last night,” He said as he stood straight, “I was under a great deal of stress but that was no reason for my boorish behavior. You had every right to defend the child, My Lady.”

Maggie paused a beat and then moved Peter off her lap and stood, “Thank you for apologizing and I hope that you will not behave that way again,” she said sternly. “I also think you owe the rest of them an apology too,” She motioned to the others.

“You are correct,” He turned and did his little bow again and apologized to the others, “Please accept my apology and thank you for your hospitality.”

The silence was a little uncomfortable. “Ok, then. Peter wants food and he’s not having Pop-Tarts. How about the diner, are you guys ok with that?” Maggie asked as she reached for her purse, “I could use some food too and it’s a nice day for a little walk.”

Thor was handed the box of Pop-Tarts and they walked to the diner on the other side of the small town. They sat and ordered, Jane took out her notebook, “Can you tell us exactly what happened to you last night?”

Thor stared into her eyes, admiring her appearance. Jane got flustered, then looked down and started flipping pages. Their drinks were delivered just in time for it to break the tension and Maggie sipped her coffee as she watched Thor drink his.

“This drink! I like it!” He declared as lifted his arm with the mug. “A-!”

On instinct Maggie grabbed his hand and the mug, stopping him, “Cease, Thor! If you enjoy it, you verbally request another! This is not Asgard! You know the rules of visiting other realms! Words before actions!”

Everyone paused and stared at her. Thor blinked and slowly lowered his arm and set the mug back on the table. He stared at her face and then her eyes.

“What?” Maggie blinked and looked at the others, “What just happened? I think I blacked out for a second. I think my blood sugar just crashed,” She rubbed her eyes.

“You just yelled at Thor with a British accent and talked about visiting other realms,” Darcy said, “and then your eyes changed colors. They look normal now, but they were a greeny-blue. It was kinda freaky.”

Maggie breathed through her panic and a small hand squeezed hers under the table. She looked over and found Peter staring at her with worry in his eyes, “Are you ok, Maggie?”

“I’m ok, buddy.” Maggie felt a little out of sync and shaky, “I think I need some more coffee and I definitely need some food.” She felt her other hand lifted from the tabletop and cradled in a massive hand.

“You remind me of my brother’s betrothed. She would often chide me and stop me from making a fool of myself,” Thor said quietly, “She was a strong and wise woman. Thank you for preventing me from being disrespectful.”

“It’s ok. I didn’t mean to yell at you,” she said and felt a nudge from Peter’s side as he leaned against her in comfort.

“Ok, here’s your order!” The waitress said cheerily as she set the food down in front of them, “I’ll bring some more coffee and the second wave of food for the big guy.”

They all ate and when they were all finished they watched Thor eat ravenously through another plate heaped high with steak and eggs. The waitress had just come round and took away the three plates he had finished.

“How could you eat an entire box of Pop-Tarts and still be this hungry?” Darcy asked as she took out her phone, holding it up for a picture. “Smile!”

“Darcy!” Jane admonished as she brought out her notebook again, “Can you tell us what happened last night and how you got inside that cloud?”

Before Thor could say anything, a man walked in and sat down at the counter, “You missed all the excitement out at the crater!” He shouted out to another man sitting on the opposite end.

“What crater,” The waitress asked as she poured him a coffee. Jane and Erik looked at each other and Peter perked up.

“They’re saying some kind of satellite crashed in the desert,” the man on the far side of the counter answered.

“We were having a good time with it till the Feds showed up and chased us out,” the man replied as he poured sugar into his coffee.

Jane stood and went over to the man who had just come in, “Excuse me, did you say there was a satellite crash?”

“Yep. They said it was radioactive and I had my hands all over it,” he paused in reflection, “I’m probably sterile now.”

Peter looked excited and pulled out his phone to start Googling and Maggie tried to not freak out a little. This was not going to be good because she had a sneaking suspicion that SHIELD was actually the Feds and if SHIELD was here, Tony would soon follow. She knew that he had a suit made for Rhodey so she’d probably get two, over-protective, suit enhanced men to deal with. Shit.

She heard a click and saw Darcy taking more pictures, “This is so going on my Facebook!”

“What did the satellite look like?” Erik asked as he got up and stood next to Jane.

“I don’t know nothin' about satellites, but it was heavy. Real heavy. Nobody could lift it,” the man said as he took a sip of his coffee.

Thor perked up and put his fork down, startling Peter from his Googling spree, and strode over to the newcomer and lifted him by the front of his jacket. “Where?”

“About fifty miles east of here.”

Thor grinned and strode out of the diner and the man shouted after him, “I wouldn’t bother! Looked like the whole Army was coming in when we were forced to leave!”

“Well, this isn’t going to be good,” Maggie said as she went to settle their check, leaving a nice tip, “Come on buddy, let’s go.” Peter got up and she guided him out behind the rest of them.

When they came upon the group, Erik was pulling Jane aside, “Please don’t do this.”

“You know what we saw last night, this can’t be a coincidence. I want to know what’s in the crater,” Jane replied as she watched Thor gauge the position of the sun.

“I’m not talking about the crater, I’m talking about him.”

“He’s promised us answers.”

“He’s delusional! Listen to what he’s saying! ‘Thor’, ‘Bifrost’, ‘Mjolnir’! Those are the stories I grew up with as a child!”

“I’d just be driving him out there, that’s all.”

“It’s dangerous. He’s dangerous,” Erik took a step back and Jane nodded at him and walked over to where Thor was speaking with Darcy.

“I’m sorry, I can’t take you,” she told him.

“I understand. Then this is where we say goodbye,” he picked up her hand and kissed it. Turning to the rest of them he bowed shallowly again. “Jane Foster, Erik Selvig, Darcy, Lady Maggie, Young Peter. Farewell.”

Jane, Erik, and Darcy bowed awkwardly back as Peter giggled at them and waved. Maggie held on to Peter’s shoulders and watched him go. W _e’ll see him again,_ she thought _, I just have this feeling_ …”

They walked back to the lab and found government vehicles parked around the building and agents hauling equipment out of the lab.

“What the hell is going on here?!” Jane shouted as she rushed around trying to stop them.

“Ms. Foster, I’m Agent Coulson with SHIELD,” a familiar voice came from behind Maggie.

“Agent!” Maggie declared as she turned and pulled Peter close, “What are you doing here? Don’t you have some tentacles to cut off?”

“Ms. Skold. Peter.” He didn’t look surprised to see her.

“I would love to say it was nice to see you, but it really isn’t,” she said as she watched them haul her espresso machine off the counter. “That is private property and you will put that back,” she said as she reached for her batons. “Phil, you know how I get when someone messes with my coffee!”

“I’m sorry, Maggie,” he turned to the agent and motioned for him to leave it.

“You know she’s a Doctor, right?” Maggie said as she sat Peter in a chair, gave him a look and he rolled his eyes at her. She turned and stood in front of him with the batons out, drawing attention away from Jane hiding her small meter in her jacket. “I would like an explanation, please.”

“We're here investigating a security threat. We need to appropriate Doctor Foster’s equipment and all her atmospheric data,” he said, not noticing the object.

“Really, Phil? And the Pirate Director approved this?” she motioned to the agents that had paused in their work to stare at them, shocked at her rapport with their esteemed boss, “there are easier ways than stealing and running.”

Coulson turned from Maggie and held out a check to Jane, “This should more than compensate you for your trouble.”

She didn’t take it. “I can’t just pick up replacements from RadioShack! I made most of this equipment myself!” She yelled at him as the other agents started gathering items again.

“Then I’m sure you can do it again,” he turned back to Maggie, “I’m sorry to ruin your vacation, but we’ll need your phone too.” He held out his hand.

“Oh, I don’t think so.”

“I’m sure I can sue you for violating my constitutional rights!” Jane panicked as the last of the items were loaded and the rest of the agents went outside.

“We're the good guys, Ms. Foster,” Coulson said while still holding his hand out for Maggie’s phone.

“So are we! We’re on the verge of understanding something extraordinary!” She said as she held up her notebook, outraged and very furious, “Everything I know about this phenomenon is in this lab and in this book, and no one has the right to take it from me.”

Coulson gestured to the last agent who grabbed it as he walked in front of her on the way out the door.

Maggie zapped his hand and shook her head, “You will have to fight me for it and I know you won’t win,” she threatened, “I want her notebook back.”

He sighed as he turned to leave, giving up on the phone, “Thank you for your cooperation.” Ignoring her request for the notebook and following his agents.

Doors slammed and they drove off.

“Years of research. Gone.” Jane sounded forlorn as she clutched her last piece of tech.

“They even took my iPod,” Darcy said as she dug through the desk drawer.

“And your back-ups?” Erik asked her as he picked up a tipped over chair.

“Look around! They took our back-ups. They took the back-ups of our back-ups!” Jane shouted with tears in her eyes flinging her arms around.

“I just downloaded, like, thirty songs on there,” Darcy whined, still searching in vain.

“Will you please stop talking about your iPod!?” Jane shouted at Darcy. Calmly she walked over to the kitchen, “Maggie who were these people?”

Maggie sighed and watched as Peter kicked a soccer ball around outside, “They’re a secret organization that specializes in ‘weird shit’,” she air quoted, “Howard Stark started it in the late ’40s with Peggy Carter.”

“I knew a scientist, a pioneer in gamma radiation. SHIELD showed up and he was never heard from again,” Erik spoke up as he sat heavily in the chair.

“Bruce Banner. He’s alive and well,” Maggie spoke up as she tidied up the kitchen area, “he’s hiding out in the world from General Ross.”

“Oh. That’s good.” Erik said awkwardly as he paused in thought.

“I’m not going to let them do this to me! I’m getting everything back,” Jane said as she shuffled through some empty boxes.

“Let me contact one of my colleagues. Dr. Pym has had some dealings with these people. I’ll e-mail him and see if he can help,” Erik stood and moved towards his bag.

“They took your laptop, too.” Darcy chimed in as she closed the drawer in defeat.

Darcy and Erik headed out the door to go to the local library to use their computers and Jane took the truck. “I’m just going to run out and get some gas. I want to go to Santa Fe and get some supplies to record down what I remember and maybe build some equipment.”

Maggie wasn’t fooled. She had a feeling Jane was going to go get Thor for some answers. And sure enough, ten minutes later she saw them drive by, headed towards where the satellite was located.

Shaking her head she saw that Tony was calling, “Tony? Is everything ok?”

***************

JARVIS had ordered all the parts needed for the atom collider last week under a shell company after he finished the calculations needed for making the new element. (He discretely paid MIT for Sir’s and Colonel Rhodes second-year finals project after he discovered it in the basement of the old robotics wing and had it shipped to Malibu).

After Sir, Master Peter, and Miss Maggie had gone to New York, JARVIS made the adjustments to the Mansion’s power grid to accommodate Sir’s soon to be a large electric bill. They had high voltage lines run two years ago when Sir had contemplated adjusting his lab to accommodate some specialized equipment, including a versatile 3-D printer, but they had never finished running the cables from the central power control grid that was built into the house to the lab. They would also have to adjust several of JARVIS’ network lines and knock holes in the walls to be able to install the atom collider. When JARVIS had suggested a different location, Sir had stated that it was better to keep it in house, “It’ll force me to upgrade the lab, J. I should have done it when we started constructing the suits. This way this will force me to upgrade and expand the lab so I don’t have to machine specialized parts at SI in the dead of night like a sneaky child.”

So Sir started ripping up the floors and knocking holes in walls yesterday after Ms. Potts left and Sir had ‘Ms. Rushman’ hired as his new assistant. JARVIS had his reasons for not telling Sir about Ms. Rushman’s true identity. Mainly it was because Miss Maggie was away and there was no one home to physically protect Sir while some of JARVIS’s network was offline and his connection to Sir’s suit disrupted. He had finished several drone suits in Detroit last week, but he currently did not have the processing power to be able to manage more than a few suits in basic sentry mode. So Ms. Rushman was hired and JARVIS made sure that she was scheduled to be at the Mansion when he was offline during re-wiring and off-network times in the Mansion.

Sir was in the lab pounding away at a wall and Ms. Rushman was in Sir’s office working on some paperwork for Ms. Potts when the Director of SHIELD knocked on the door.

“Ms. Rushman, would you be so kind as to answer the door. Sir is currently occupied and your known associate appears to be impatient,” JARVIS interrupted her work, showing her a live video feed of the front door. She froze and a knife appeared out of nowhere in her hand.

“So you do know who I am, JARVIS,” Natasha Romanoff said as she re-sheathed the knife and got up from the office chair, “Of course you do, Maggie tells you everything, doesn’t she?”

“Not everything, Ms. Romanoff,” JARVIS replied primly, “I do my research and you were the best person available to protect Sir while Miss Maggie is safely away with Master Peter.”

Natasha sighed and walked through the living area, past Peter’s animals and fauna, to the front door, “Fury. What do I owe this pleasure?”

“I’ve come to talk to Stark, it’s about Ms. Stark,” Fury said as he walked past her into the house, “It took us a while, but there’s something not right.”

“Is she ok?” Even though Natasha had had her suspicions from the beginning, she had come to know her and felt that she was pretty genuine. Maggie was skilled, but it took a lot to keep up that long of a con.

“Yes, as far as we know she’s fine. Well, not really. There’s is a problem in the southwest region and she’s right in the middle of it. How’s he doing?” Fury asked as he stopped in the living room, holes in the floor and wires everywhere.

“Good, he’s in the middle of busting through the walls in the basement,” They looked down as a jackhammer started up from the large hole in the floor, “Did you bring the lithium dioxide?!” Natasha shouted over the noise.

Fury held up a small zipper pouch and looked over at the art in the entryway and then motioned them towards the stairs. Going down they could see Tony in a tank top and dirty jeans with safety glasses on through the glass wall. Letting Natasha take the lead he followed after as she punched in her code and JARVIS flashed the lights to let Tony know he had company.

“J, what’s going on?” Tony asked as he set the hammer down and turned towards the doorway, “Ah, Director Pirate, and I presume you are really Maggie’s Nat that saved her when she was kidnapped. J, we’re having a serious talk after this about withholding information.”

“We’re here about your sister, Stark. Something is going on with her.”

“What? Is she ok?” Tony panicked as he looked around for his phone, “JARVIS where’s my phone! Wait, call Maggie right now!”

“Connecting, Sir.”

“Tony?” Maggie’s voice rang through the lab, “Is everything ok?”

“No, the Pirate and Nat are here to tell me that something is wrong with you.”

“Oh, I’m fine. Peter is fine. Jane hit a guy the other night with her SUV in the middle of the desert, but other than that we’re good.”

“What?!” Came from all three of them.

“It’s ok, something about wormholes and him thinking he’s Thor. Peter was excited about gods maybe being real but I think he was just drunk and his buddies thought it would be funny to leave him in the middle of nowhere.”

Tony gestured towards the ceiling and speakers, “See, nothing to be worried about. I don’t see why you guys had to come here and tell me that something was going on when you could have just texted or called or something,” Tony turned and went to pick up the jackhammer again.

“She doesn’t exist before eight years ago, Stark. That’s why we’re here,” Fury interrupted.

Tony stood still, took a deep breath, and turned back towards the SHIELD operatives, “I know.”

“Tony, let me explain,” Maggie’s voice came from the ceiling.

“You shouldn’t have to,” he ground out as he threw his glasses down on the table, “I’m sure they saw the records and know exactly what you know. There is no reason for you to revisit a horrible time in your life for the Pirate and his Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers.”

“I knew when Nat and I started training and again when you adopted me that this would be a problem,” she sighed on the phone, “You’re an asset and I’m a liability,” She paused and took a deep breath. “I don’t exist before eight years ago because I was held in a cabin in the mountains somewhere out west and then abandoned in the middle of fucking Montana when they got sick of me. The cabin is still there if you want to investigate, JARVIS will give you the information that you need.”

Silence filled the lab and Nat tensed up.

“Tony and JARVIS hid the information when I started working for him. I was always honest with him from the start,” her voice was strained, “I have no real name that I know of and very little memory of the cabin. It was found it by chance five years ago by some hikers,” her breathing increased audibly.

“Sigyn was etched into a bracelet that I was wearing when my foster parents found me. Margaret and Skold were given to me by them and I kept Sigyn to remember where I came from.” Her breathing picked up even more, “They died right before I turned 17 and never saw me graduate.”

Nat turned and walked out of the lab and went back up the stairs. Fury crossed his arms and looked at Tony who was glaring at him, “Are you happy now?” Tony asked him picking up a large wrench.

“She might be in danger,” Fury said quietly, “There was an object that dropped out of the atmosphere two nights ago with similar radiation readings to the Tesseract, 50 miles from her location.”

“If you can call big, blond, and belligerent an object,” Maggie said sarcastically.

“No, it looks like a large hammer,” Fury replied, “And it’s un-movable.”

“What!?” Maggie’s voice rose over the phone, “Tony, I have to go.”

“Don’t you dare hang up, Mags!” Tony shouted as the line clicked, “JARVIS, track her and ready the suit.”

“I can’t Sir, the suits are temporarily offline.”

“Shit! Shit!” Tony strode up to Fury and grabbed the front of his coat, “My kid and sister are there, what are you going to go do?”

“It’s minor at the moment and I sent Coulson to secure it and analyze it, nothing for you to worry about it. They’re far enough from it that she’s safe where she is.”

“Yeah, like I’m going to believe you. Your secrets have secrets,” Tony walked over to the wall that he had been working on, “JARVIS how long till I get this built if we make Rushman help us?”

“About twelve hours, Sir.”

“Where are we are on ‘Project Platypus’?”

“We are finished and ready for Colonel Rhodes to take possession of the armor.”

“Good, call him and have him come over as soon as possible. Ask him to take some leave, family emergency.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“J, tell Rushman to raid Mag's closet for some workout clothes, she’s now on building duty. Send my regrets to Pepper, please.”

“Stark! My agent is not your lackey,” Fury called out.

“She’s my assistant until you re-assign her, so she’s going to help me out here so I can get myself fixed up so I can get my kid back home as soon as possible. I can’t do that when I’m here talking to you doing nothing and dying.”

Natalie came down the stairs a few moments later in leggings, a t-shirt, and some tennis shoes, “I have something that will help mitigate some of your symptoms,” she held out the zip pouch, “It’ll take the edge off, but it’s not a cure.”

“What is it?” Tony asked as he took it from her hand.

“That’s lithium dioxide. It’s gonna take the edge off. We’re trying to get you back to work,” Fury spoke as he moved to leave, “Ms. Stark is correct when she said that you are an asset, we need you up and running as soon as possible.”

“She’s an asset too, Pirate. Don’t forget that.” Tony set the pouch down, unzipped it, and visually analyzed the vial and syringe, “This going to kill me J?”

“No, Sir. I’ve traced it back to the manufacturer and it’s safe for you to take. I also took the liberty to consult with Doctor Strange and he informed me that this would help lessen some of the symptoms by removing some of the toxic compounds in your bloodstream. Almost like a chelator.”

“Ms. Rushman, would you assist me?” Tony asked as he held them out to her, “I hate needles and I need you to do the honors.” He walked over to a chair next to DUM-E, sat, and grasped the held out claw, looking up at the bot. “Thanks, bud.” Natasha came over and quickly administered the dose.

“All done!” she faked cheeriness.

“I’m leaving you with Romanoff,” Fury passed through the doorway, “And you are correct, your sister is an asset,” he said as he walked up the stairs.

“That’s right, Pirate! She’s a badass!” Tony yelled after him. Standing he motioned Natasha over to the crates holding the particle collider parts, “I need you to start opening these crates for me. I’m going to go finish this hole and then we’re going to start some assembly. JARVIS, ETA on Rhodey Bear?”

“Colonel Rhodes informed me to tell you that he’s in DC and will be here in 6 hours.”

“Good, then he can help with the RF cavities. He can put that rocket science degree to good use for once.”

They moved quickly, re-assembling the particle accelerator that Tony and Rhodey had made when they were at MIT to show up Tiberius Stone. He still had no idea where JARVIS had found it. He thought that after MIT had confiscated it, they had it disassembled and destroyed. The fine Howard paid for that stunt still paid for the Alumni dinners each year.

“Tones! What the hell is going on here?!” Came from upstairs through the hole, Rhodey’s face peered down at them. “Maggie is going to be pissed when she sees this!”

“She doesn’t know Sour Patch and I plan on fixing it before she sees it!” Tony shouted back as he lifted the tubing and Natalie slid a cinderblock under it to level it off. Placing the level on top of the tube, he looked at the bubble, “Shit, we need something else.” Searching around he saw the half-made shield from Howards old WW2 footlocker that Peter had been playing with before he left. “It’s exactly what I need to make this work,” he made grabby hands at it and Natasha grabbed it and Tony lifted the coil again.

“Please tell me that that is our second-year final project?” Rhodey came through the workshop door.

“It is, JARVIS found it and won’t disclose where he found it.”

“It’s an early birthday present from me, Sir,” JARVIS said, “It would ruin the sentimental value of the gift if I told you.”

“Rhodey Bear, this is Natalie. Natalie, Rhodey Bear,” Tony introduced as he drank some water.

“Natasha Romanoff, please call me Nat.”

“James Rhodes, you can call me James or Rhodey.”

“Ok, that’s done. I need some help with the RF cavities and we need to make sure the wiring for the magnets hasn’t deteriorated in the past 20 or so years.”

“Wow!” Rhodey stood there taking it in, “I never thought I’d see this again. It was the best grade I ever received the biggest mark on my record.”

“Yup. And Howard beat me black and blue for it but it was a piece of art. It was my first baby.”

“Don’t tell Peter that, I can’t stand to see his sad puppy dog face. It kills me every time. What’s with the family emergency Tones? Is Peter ok?”

“Yeah, I’m just dying and need to make this element so I don’t kick it in the next few weeks. And Peter and Mags are in the middle of a SHIELD operation.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, I was going to tell you. Maybe. I have a suit for you.”

“Tony, you’re dying and you’re talking about suits…” Rhodey sighed, “From what?”

“Heavy metal poisoning from the reactor. That’s why I’ve been getting everything together for Peter and you signed those documents two months ago.”

“Ok,” Rhodey stared at his best friend of 25 years for a minute, “I’m going to go change out of my uniform and I’m going to come down here and we’re going to get this up and running. Then after we make whatever we need to fix you from dying we’re talking about everything. Everything.” He stressed as he pointed his index finger at Tony and shook it at him.

“Ok,” Tony smiled at him, “You’re gonna love the suit I built for you. It’s so shiny and has so much firepower. It’s like a metal Rambo!”

Natasha giggled from the corner, “Rambo?”

“Yeah, you have a problem with Rambo?” Tony squinted at her in mock offense.

“Oh, no, no. No, problem,” She laughed at him, “I always felt that Blade or even Terminator was better than Rambo.”

“Fair. Rhodey would make an excellent Blade.”

“I would make a very bad-ass Blade,” Rhodey said as he backed towards the door, “I’ll be right back. JARVIS, can you order us some food, I’m hungry.”

“Of course, Colonel. Anything you would prefer?”

“Ask Nat what she would like and we’ll go with that,” Rhodey’s voice carried down the stairs.

“Oh, he never lets me chose anymore,” Tony complained as he checked the next section for level.

“Would you like me to tell Ms. Romanoff what you ordered the last time the Colonel let you order?”

“No, J. Let’s get this done. I have an element to invent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG So. Much. Research. 
> 
> -Heavy metal poisoning and how to deal with it. It's bad. Like real bad. Clint Michigan deserves everything!  
> -Particle accelerators. Movie TS is missing some shit. Example: https://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/movies/a12418/iron-man-2-particle-accelerator/  
> -It was hard for me to find a black action star that is amazing and bad-ass from pre-2010 that was NOT Samuel L. Jackson. Well, we could have done Shaft (2000) or Pulpfiction, but I love Blade. Wesley Snipes, is awesome! So we went with that. 
> 
> Marvel fact checking is not cool. 
> 
> Dear Kevin Feige, please have your writers do real research. Like the Heavy metal poisoning of Iron Man was so easy and Particle accelerators! YOU CAN MAKE ONE IN YOUR BASEMENT FOR REALSIES! But please don't. To be honest, as I write I have at least 6 tabs open at a time. Word research, fact checking, movie research, fact checking, real place research, weather, fact checking.... it goes on and on and on and on. 
> 
> I curse my logical fact needing brain!
> 
> Thanks for reading! <3 ~M.
> 
> PS: I think Okily Dokilyum is hillarious AF. Come on! Badassium is no better. Starkanium is appropriate.


	6. Rescuing Hercules and Wearing Mjölnir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki finds his destiny again... or it finds him?

After the call from Tony, she knew she had to get Jane. If Thor was really Thor, then there was more going on than what appeared and Jane was in danger. So she hauled Peter to the library and left him with Erik and Darcy. The drive only took about an hour, but it was dark by the time she found Jane’s SUV parked about a half-mile from the hill that overlooked the spot-lit spot.

“Jane,” she whisper shouted from behind her, “What the hell are you doing out here?”

“Umm, getting my stuff back.”

Alarms suddenly rang out and they watched Thor fight his way to the item in the center of the containment area. A crane activated and she saw an archer hold his position while he followed Thor and another beefy guy fight in the mud. Thor managed to win and made his way to the containment area. He ripped the plastic off the side and approached the object. They could see him pulling on it for a moment before screaming in frustration and falling to his knees in grief.

“I’m going to have to go save his, ass, aren’t I?” Maggie muttered on the ground next to Jane as she scanned the area with the binoculars as things calmed down after the twenty minutes of melee. She noticed the crane boom lowering and a man with a bow jump out. “Hmmm, JARVIS is Nat still hanging with Tony?”

“Yes, Miss. They’re constructing the particle accelerator with Colonel Rhodes.”

“Can you ask her if Birdbrain is hanging with Agent?”

There was a minute pause before he replied, “Ms. Rushman informed me that Birdbrain is currently with Agent. She also mentioned that if you happened to zap him for her, she’d appreciate it. He ate the rest of her moose track ice-cream last week and she would appreciate a revenge taze to make up for it.”

Jane and Maggie chuckled softly, “JARVIS, could you call Birdbrain for me, please.”

“Calling Birdbrain…”

“Em? What are you doing calling me on this fine night?” Came a jovial male voice on the phone.

“Just hanging out in the southwest, learning some space science,” She said vaguely, “Nat said you were in the area and I thought we could hang out.”

“Oh? Not looking for a hammer, are you?”

She shook her head at his bluntness, “I hope you’re not next to our favorite Agent at the moment, or he’ll send someone out to collect me. He already tried taking my phone from me for some reason.”

“Oh, you know how he loves to take apart tech to learn about it. Yours is a custom phone with long-range capabilities, video calling, and an AI interface. He was looking for an excuse to take it from you for a while.”

“Well, he can’t have it,” she sat up and rolled her neck. It was cold and wet and her whole body hurt from lying on the ground for 40 minutes. “I was wondering if we could make a deal and I will include not zapping you for ice-cream theft, to consider it.”

“Ah, talking with Nat again. She ate it all and then blamed me, but I accept your offer,” he teased. He definitely ate it. He was notorious for ice-cream stealing.

“I will bake all the cupcakes or cake for your little chick’s birthday if you give me a ten-minute window to rescue Hercules.”

“Hmm, that is tempting,” he hummed in thought, “but that’s not a lot of cupcakes for ten minutes. I would need two birthdays and food to consider 5 minutes.”

“Cake and food for the chick and a special surprise for your birthday. I will also throw in a negotiable cake, with a two-year window, if you give me 15 minutes. I know you can do it, you love fucking with Agent when he’s being sassy and he’s been very sassy today.”

“Throw in two negotiable cakes and it’s a deal.”

“Cool! You’re my hero Clint.”

“I’ll give you five minutes from the end of the call and then you have your fifteen-minute window.”

“Thanks! I’ll tell Nat I zapped you, but you need to replace that ice cream you ate.”

“But what fun is that? I’ll see you later, Em.”

“Bye Birdbrain, tell your chicks I said ‘hi’.”

“Will do.”

She hung up and got up. She shed her heavy raincoat and pulled out her batons to check the charge. Sighing she wrapped her dark linen scarf around her face to hide her hair and face and adjusted her gloves. “Stay here and if I’m not back in an hour, have JARVIS call Tony. I’m leaving my phone with you and you just have to talk to him and he will respond to you. “Right JARVIS?”

“Yes, Miss. Did you bring your com?”

“No, so I’m going in blind. New rules, a riot kit gets thrown in every bag.”

“Noted,” JARVIS confirmed from her phone, “I can cycle the cameras for about five minutes before they notice.”

“Thanks, JARVIS. Maybe I can surprise Agent with the skills I learned from Nat, but I would prefer to get in and out.”

“Good luck, Maggie,” Jane huddled under the two abandoned coats, “I’m sorry for this.”

“It’s ok, but you owe Peter a few lessons. Sound like a good trade?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Ok,” Maggie took a deep breath and headed down as an explosion from the other side of the camp lit up the night.

*************

Loki entered the chambers next to his. Dust lay lightly over the flat surfaces and dust clothes covered furniture, giving everything an abandoned haunted feel. He approached a small dressing table, lifted the dust cover, and uncovered a comb and several trinket boxes. Picking up a small round box, he clicked it open and inspected the ring inside. It was gold and Uru twisted together with dark green gemstones inset around the band. He could feel the seiðr that he had coerced into it along with the protection spells that Etri had placed in it for the woman who would never wear it.

The Dwarf had adored the way she could design the most beautiful and deadly of weapons and often gifted Sigyn with the physical manifestation of her creations. When Loki had approached Etri for assistance with her wedding ring, the stoic dwarf had rebuffed him several times. The Dwarf King had never forgiven him for taking several small daggers when he was a child and refused to ever make anything for him. After Sigyn had gifted Etri with several precious items from Vanaheim, he agreed to construct her a ring of his design. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been finished before her death. In the end, his mother had placed the ring in her Asgardian chambers and it was magically sealed.

Until today.

Thinking of how Sigyn would have reacted to recent events made him smile. She would never have hurt them but the heat of her wrath would have made any one of them rethink their actions. She would have thrown several daggers at him and then gone to Midgard to beat Thor with Mjölnir before hauling him home. Even Heimdall wouldn’t have been able to avoid her wrath.

Placing the ring on a chain, he looped it around his neck and tucked it under his linen tunic. Setting everything to rights, he left the room. Resealing the wards.

*************

Loki slipped through the wormhole to Midgard, shielded, and teleported to Thor’s location. He clothed himself in Midgardian clothing and observed as the non-descript bald man questioned his defeated brother. Trying not to snicker at the man’s guessing game on how Thor received his training, he silently willed the Midgardian to leave the room.

“Who are you?” The Midgardian asked his brother.

“Just a man,” Thor answered, head bowed. Defeated.

“One way or another, we find out what we want to know. We’re good at that,” the man stated confidently as he left the room.

“I thought he would never leave,” Loki stated as he manipulated his shielding so only Thor could see him.

“Loki? What are you doing here?” Thor’s surprise at his appearance making this deception all that much harder.

“I had to see you,” Loki schooled his features and hoped he didn’t give anything away.

“What’s happened? Tell me! Is it Jotunheim? Let me explain to Fath-.”

“Father is dead,” Loki interrupted his brother’s rambling.

“What?”

“Your banishment, the threat of a new war, it was too much for him to bear.”

Thor silently wept at his lie. Loki could almost feel the guilt and the pain and if Thor still had his seiðr, the sky would pour and rage at his sorrow. 

Drawing near to Thor, he put his hand on his shoulder, “You mustn’t blame yourself. I know that you loved him. I tried to tell him so, but he wouldn’t listen,” Loki paused and stepped back, “It was cruel to put the hammer within your reach, knowing you could never lift it.”

Thor continued to silently weep, his fists clenching and unclenching, trying to breathe.

“The burden of the throne has fallen to me now,” Loki humbly bragged.

“Can I come home?” Thor managed to get out.

“The truce with Jotunheim is conditional upon your exile,” Loki lied again. It was too easy.

“But couldn't we find a way to…”

“Mother has forbidden your return,” Loki interrupted.

Thor flinched, lowered his head, and nodded.

Beaten.

Defeated.

Accepting his fate.

“This is goodbye, brother. I’m so sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. Loki… thank you for coming here,” Thor quietly thanked him, believing the lies.

“Nothing could have stopped me,” Loki turned and out of the corner of his eye he saw the agent slide the door open.

Shielding himself but allowing Thor to hear him, “Farewell, brother.”

“Goodbye.”

“Now. Where did we leave off?” The bald man said as Loki teleported in front of Mjölnir.

************

Maggie managed to get past the fence and happened across a supply truck. Grabbing some gear to blend in, she made her way to the hole that Thor had made to get to the object. As she skirted the facility she came across an area that seemed loaded with Jane’s equipment. As she passed a table covered in smaller items she saw her notebook. Looking around, she noticed she was still alone, so she grabbed it and put it in the pocket of her oversized poncho.

As she approached the ripped plastic she peered around the edges and noticed that the area was empty of people. Curious about the oversized hammer, she approached it and reached for the handle.

*****************

Loki reached out to grasp the handle of Mjölnir. Since Thor was in disgrace, perhaps a new being shall be worthy. But before he could take hold, a woman walked up to the hammer and grasped the handle, and lifted it. Shock rippled over her features and her glamour changed. Hazel eyes changed to teal with a gold center, skin paled from a blushed ivory to a stark luminescent white. Her chestnut hair lengthened and shifted to auburn as braids encircled her crown and gleamed with gold trinkets.

“Sigyn!? How…? You’re dead,” he stared at her in shock. Here was his betrothed, alive and not at all dead in the tomb that he had last seen her lying in.

“Well, obviously not,” She rolled her bright eyes, “It was faked by the Advisors. I lived on Midgard for almost 200 years before they blocked my memories and left me to my ‘Destiny’.” She used her fingers to quote, “I’ve been stumbling along as a human woman for the last 8 years. It’s been burdensome.”

“Then how are you remembering now, if they blocked the memories?” He blinked at her in disbelief. He must be dreaming, “I can’t believe that you would leave me to think you were dead!”

“I had to, Loki. The fate of the Universe depends on it. With the Infinity Mother murdered, I assumed the Duty and was sent to where the stones would convene.” She looked down at Mjölnir in her hand, “I’m only remembering because Mjolnir is channeling enough of my power and seiðr to temporary by-pass the memory block. If I let go, I will lose them again.” She paused and blinked back tears and the people started to move around them both, deflected by Loki’s invisibility spell. “I remember snippets of Sigyn’s memories as my human self. They pushed through when Thor was being an idiot… and when people say my true name I get a twinge,” she paused in reflection, “ I dream of you but not our names or where you are or why I’m alone... I feel like I’m always alone… trying to remember past these last eight years.”

Her last sentence went straight to his heart.

They had both known a time would come when she would have to take up the mantle of the Infinity Mother, but it had always been talked about as a few millennia instead of a few hundred years. A marriage set up when they had been babes. They were two powerful wielders of seiðr, raised together to rule Vanaheim and to maintain the alliance between their two realms. Loki had been sent home after Sigyn’s mother disappeared, the rebellion had started, and then the King was disposed and executed. Then Sigyn had died and a new heir was set on the throne of Vanaheim, leaving him the ridiculed spare heir of Asgard.

He pulled her into his arms and she wept into his neck and Mjolnir hit his back as she wrapped her arms around him, “Why didn’t you come to us? We could have protected you instead of hiding on this primitive dirtball.”

“Mother’s Advisors forced me here. After Mother disappeared they suppressed my seiðr, faked my death, and then dragged me to Midgard to hide me. I would have gone to you, but I was given no choice,” She nestled herself in his arms, her tears dripped down his neck. “Thor was thrown out of Asgard, wasn’t he? He was always short-tempered and made such stupid rash decisions,” she muttered, muffled by his scarf.

“He was, I’m currently burdened with the throne, Father is in the Odinsleep.”

Sigyn pulled back and looked him in his eyes, her Mjölnir free hand coming up to his cheek, “There’s something you’re not telling me, Loki.”

He breathed in her scent and kissed her hand, “I’m a **_Monster_** Sigyn, and you would denounce our engagement if you knew.”

She smiled up at him and kissed his lips briefly, “ ** _Never_**. If you’re a monster then so am I. I can channel the building blocks of the Universe, there is nothing more monstrous,” she looked resigned and pulled gently on his hair, “Tell me Loki.”

“Odin is not my true father,” he paused to see how she would react, the glow of her teal and gold eyes never flickering. “It is Laufey.”

He tried to pull back from her embrace but she tightened her grip and wrapped her free hand around his neck, “I don’t care,” she said before she kissed him. Pulling back she rested her forehead on his, her breaths matching his, “You are still Frigga’s beloved son, my betrothed, and the God of Stories and Mischief. It matters not where you come from, but who you are and the actions that you take.”

He lived in that moment. Her easy acceptance had always balanced out his puckish nature and urge for chaos. After her death, he had felt lost and adrift in the shadow of his impetuous brother, stranded on a world that scorned magic as a cheat. She had been his anchor and his center and he now had to somehow force himself to let her go again.

And then he remembered his lies to Thor. She would not be pleased when she found out.

“I have to let go of Mjölnir, Loki, I have to live through this mortal life until the Stones find me and release my powers.”

“Come back with me and we’ll fix it,” he pleaded, “Mother will have a solution and you don’t have to live like this.” He clutched her closer, refusing to leave without her.

“I must follow this path,” She sounded so regretful, “the Stones will cross my path soon, I can feel it,” she started to pull away. “Mother said that when she had to wield them and balance the Universe, she knew when her destiny was upon her.”

“Then we will warn Thor and he will protect you until I am unburdened of the throne. Even without his seiðr and hammer, he’s a powerful warrior. ” He grasped her hand and teleported them in front of Thor.

“Brother! What are you doing back here!? And Lady Maggie you are worthy!” Thor was nothing but an excited overwhelmed mess, which made Loki want to throw up. Thor’s drinking buddies did nothing for him and only encouraged the intemperance.

“Thor, focus!” Sigyn yelled at him, “You were never this…” she paused for a polite word, “umm… inarticulate. What is this?” She gestured at Thor as she turned to her betrothed, “He was always more poised than this.”

“Sigyn?” Thor sat there with his mouth open, “Loki, is this a trick?”

Loki sighed and rubbed his forehead with his free hand, the other still gripping his wife to be (because he was marrying her if he had to trick her into it and stab everyone who got in their way).

“It is not a trick, brother, I would never imagine her dressed as a Midgardian peasant and hiding among the primitives. My wife would never willing stoop so low,” he smiled wickedly at Sigyn, the happiest he’d been in two centuries.

“I’m yet to be your wife, you still need to put a ring on it,” the unknown reference suddenly gave him an idea. “I was hidden here because I am now the Infinity Mother,” she simplified, “Loki wants you to watch me while he is ‘burdened’ with the throne of Asgard until a time your father is not sleeping on the bloody job! It’s not like all three of us were never trained for this. **From. Birth**.” She emphasized as she glared at the two of them. “What is wrong with you two that you are both acting like we were never trained to rule, to act with poise and with a level headed mind? To think things through before acting!” She paused for breath and a calmer tone, “Thor, why are you banished from Asgard?”

“Odin Sleep? Brother! Why did you lie to me!?” Thor’s shouts echoed off the mirrored walls of the empty room, “What of the truce with Jotunheim? Is that a lie too?!”

“I lied because all you would do is get Asgard destroyed in your blundering.” Loki shouted back, “Mother wants you back, your slow-witted friends want you back, ** _I_** want you back!! But I cannot allow Asgard to fall! It’s the only home I have left-.”

“I want the truth. From both of you,” She interrupted and glared at the two brothers, “No lies or half-truths, you both should remember that I can tell when you try to deceive me.” 

The story came out and she looked more and more disappointed in both of them. When she heard about the Frost Giants and how they had entered the Vault and then Thor swaying his friends and brother into going with him to retaliate. The Bifrost trip to Jotunheim, the rescue by Odin, and then the banishment. Loki then talked about confronting his father and Odin collapsing into Odin sleep.

Sigyn looked disappointed, “Was I the only thing keeping both of you from being foolish? I’ve only been gone two hundred years!” Her shouts echoing around the space again and the clicks of her boots against the floor the only sound in the room as she paced. “Loki goes back to Asgard and talks to your mother about what we need to do for reparations to the Frost Giants. I’m going to work with Thor as Maggie to get his sorry ass back into shape and “Worthy” of Mjölnir again. I’ll lose my Sigyn memories, but Maggie has most of my personality and if she can help wrangle a Genius Billionaire and his mini-me she’s more than qualified to fix Thor,” She paused and looked down at Mjölnir, “I’ll take Mjölnir with us since she can’t stay here, so maybe I can be Sigyn for a little longer.”

She looked happy and resigned at that and turned to face Loki, “How bad am I glowing? Mother always had the glowy thing going and I hated it.”

“You could light the Asgardian throne room,” Loki teased, “you know how to channel and adjust your glamour, just focus on your primitive form and it’ll adjust.”

She closed her eyes and after a few moments, her goddess form shifted back to appear more mortal. Her hair remained auburn but her eyes went blue/grey and her skin no longer had the inner glow. She lifted Mjölnir and rested her against her chest, “Please be a dear and make yourself wearable. I would love to carry you around in my hand, but I need both hands and you would look glorious as an intricate torc.”

As the brothers watched in shock, Mjölnir glowed and shifted to wrap herself around Sigyn’s neck, her etchings swirling around the large band that wrapped around the back of Sigyn’s neck and ending with swirl work on the knob ends. Sigyn reached up and stroked Mjölnir before wrapping her scarf over it.

“Ok boys, let’s get out of here. I don’t want Agent to walk in here and find me because I don’t know how I’ll explain all of this and I need some time to work up a good cover,” She gestured to Thor, Loki, and then Mjölnir. “Loki, love, will you teleport us to the ridge where Thor’s girlfriend is waiting for us? I don’t have the control right now to manage.”

“Of course. Anything for my wife,” Loki smirked at her and pulled her close tucking her into his side. He reached out and grabbed Thor by his shoulder and teleported all of them to the ridge, using Sign’s memory that she sent to him.

“Not quite wife, Loki,” Sigyn corrected as she leaned into him watching Thor greet and reassure Jane. “I wish we didn’t have to do this. I just want to run from everything and live our lives with no destiny or thrones.”

He touched her cheek and felt her sorrow and pain and yearning, “at least we have more time than that,” he nodded to Thor and Jane. “Odin would never allow Thor’s mortal to be Queen and Thor would never defy his duty for love no matter how much he would yearn to.” He broke off and pulled her into his arms, Mjölnir digging into his collar bone and neck sending out jolts of electricity and seiðr in protest. “We’ll find a way. I will **not** lose you again.”

“I know.” She kissed his lips, stepping back before he teleported back to Asgard in a flash of green and gold light. A dagger with a ring on the blade left in her hand.

“Who was that?” Jane asked.

“Oh, just my husband,” Sigyn said as she headed towards her car, slipping the ring on her finger and pocketing the dagger.

“What?!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha! Boom Baby! Good job @PrincessPrettyPants and @WinterJoy who were right! I've been waiting weeks and weeks to drop that bomb!
> 
> Before you say "Hey! When did they get married?!" I'll tell you! When Loki gave her the dagger with the ring on the blade. 
> 
> Ugh! I did the research on wedding practices of Vikings (It was kinda miserable and the modern day wanna-be weddings was just weird). I guess traditionally the groom would dig up a sword from his ancestor's grave and then present it to his bride with the ring on it. The bride would keep the sword for the son and the maiden headband she wore till she got married, would be saved for the daughter. 
> 
> I admit it. I twisted it. Let's say the dagger was given to Loki from Frigga (her bridal dagger not a sword) and then he put the ring for Sigyn on the blade and slipped it to her. Sneakily marrying her. It's a jump the broom/hand-fasting situation, but you know he had to put a ring on it. 
> 
> He is the Tricky God of Tricks. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! (Now that I dropped that bomb, I hope everyone keeps reading)  
> ;-) <3 ~M.


	7. The Infinity Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interlude. Fairy tales are always rooted in truth.

**Before Creation, there were SEVEN singularities.**

**When the Universe exploded into existence, the remnants of six of the singularities were forged into concentrated ingots.**

****

** The Infinity Stones **

**These stones can only be brandished by beings of extraordinary strength _Or_ by the seventh singularity. **

** The Infinity Mother **

**An entity with nobody, but composed of pure energy and power, she was the youngest of the singularities and the most malleable. Her duty was to keep the Stones in balance and protect them from destroying the Universe they had sacrificed themselves to create.**

**When life flourished, she found herself a host to channel her energy and to share their powers. She knew that she needed to connect with the humanity of life to be able to properly judge when she had to step in and interfere when the Stones were used in the wrong way.**

**For **millennia** , she went from Mother to Daughter without being needed. The stones kept themselves in check and destroyed the unworthy and occasionally granted boons. **

**The Daughter married a king of one of the Seven Realms and the Mother rejoiced. It was strong in** **seiðr and valued** **morality, freedom, and responsibility.**

**The Mother died and the stones were gathered for destruction by the King of Asgard and his daughter. The Daughter rose as The Mother and took back her Brothers and Sisters. She stopped the King of Asgard from controlling the Nine Realms and his **malcontent** daughter, Hela, was banished to Helheim. ** **And a treaty was made.**

**When The Daughter was born, they would marry a son of Asgard and so an alliance was brokered.**

**The King of Asgard learned his lesson and settled into a life of peace and diplomacy.**

**A prince was born to Asgard,**

**And another stolen from an icy realm.**

**And then the advent of The Daughter.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love fairy tales and this seemed like a great little opportunity to toss my own little one in. 
> 
> ***I read Momento Mori by GwendolynStacy a while back and the idea of Odin collecting the stones to solidify his rule stuck with me. It's a fun read that features a redeemed Loki and Thor going around collecting Stones. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! ~M.


	8. Battling Giant Fire Robots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie powers up!

The ride back to town was nerve-racking. Thor chose to ride back with her and all he did was stare at her in disbelief until a shimmer caught his eye.

“He gave it to you,” he said as he grasped her right hand, the ring on her middle finger. “Eitri made it for him and it’s infused with similar magic as my hammer.”

“Erinte hates Loki, how did he convince him?”

“He loves you and would create anything for you, you know that,” Thor laughed, “I think he did it for protection more than anything. Even if it was to protect you from Loki.”

She laughed, “He really does hate him.” She sobered and sighed, “I know you have questions, Thor.”

“Yes, but I don’t know where to start,” he squeezed her hand before letting go, “and I don’t know if I should call you Sigyn or Maggie.”

“Maggie. I am her and she is me, even if I don’t have my memories,” she mussed before explaining everything to Thor.

“And the boy? The one you protected and you care for?”

“I guess the best interpretation would be that he’s my Midgardian nephew,” she laughed at that, “Peter is brilliant and he would love Asgard. Our childhood tutor would enjoy teaching him, he would challenge her and surprise her in his curiosity to know everything. I guess he’s a mix of you and Loki. He loves his little tricks, his father’s armor, and saving the smallest of animals and all he wants to do is grow up to be just like his daddy.” She smiled sadly.

“What happened after I died, Thor? Why does everything seem so wrong?”

“I guess Loki and I both lost our way after your death. You were so integral to our everyday lives that without you it tore us apart,” he sighed and ran his hands through his muddy hair.

“Stop it! You’re getting mud everywhere,” she swatted at him and the car jerked.

There was silence in the car for several minutes before she took a deep breath and apologized, “I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you and Loki. I hated it here until I met Peter and Tony and their family. All I wanted to do before I lost my memories was to go home and when I lost my memories I felt so lost….” She trailed off, “Please be nice to Peter and Tony, they’re my Midgardian family and I love them as much as I love you and your family.”

“I promise, Maggie, and it’s our family, Your Majesty,” he smiled brightly at her, “You currently **_are_** the temporary Queen in absentia of Asgard.”

“Oh. Well shit!”

**********

When they got back, she got out of the car and headed into the lab, and immediately her arms were full of a sweaty excited child. “Maggie! Maggie! Look at this!” Peter shouted excitedly as he held up a book of Norse Mythology.

“Oh? What’s this?” She asked as she took the book. Opening it, she spotted Thor, flipped through the pictures and she stopped at Loki. Reading a few sentences she stopped and swore, “What the fu…dge, Loki does not have children!” She exclaimed as she kept reading, “Thor what the Hel is this?”

Thor came up behind her and read over her shoulder and he boomed out in laughter, “Oh, when we were here last, I told some stories to the local children and they must have taken me on my word.”

“Thor! How could you?” She flipped to the back for the glossary and looked for her name. Flipping back to the page of herself she read through the information. “Really? Tricked into marriage? Well, that’s true but not like that! And that’s not true…. that’s not true… ugggh! The Goddess of Fidelity?! Thor!? Did you tell lies about me too?!”

“No…” He looked sheepish.

“Really, Thor?” She glared at him.

“I’m sorry…?”

Peter just laughed at them and leaned into her side. “So he’s really Thor?” He asked excitedly, “Can I see his hammer?” Peter bounced on his feet and looked around and at Thor for the hammer.

Thor looked at her and raised his eyebrows. Maggie sighed and unwound her scarf revealing the torc, “Here is the hammer that you wanted to see.”

He looked disappointed and went to take it off of her. She smiled, knowing that only she and Thor at his most worthy could lift it. But it moved and shifted. Startled she stopped him by taking his shoulders, “Peter. Stop.”

He pulled away and looked frightened, “What did I do? I can’t touch it?”

She let him go and lifted Mjölnir off of her neck and silently spoke to her to request she temporarily change back to a hammer. And as she shifted, the gasp of surprise from the boy and the adults in the room made her smile in glee. “Thank you, dear. Would you like to meet Peter?” The hammer shimmered her assent, “Hold out your hands, Peter.” He held out his hands and she lightly placed it on his palms and slowly lifted her fingers from it, expecting her memories to fade.

But they didn’t.

Her ring started glowing and shimmered and she felt her goddess persona push to the forefront and she heard a clang of Mjölnir hitting the floor.

“What the fuck!?” Darcy’s exclamation echoed the empty room.

“Umm, Maggie? You’re glowing like a lightbulb,” Peter said meekly his hands still out in front of him, minus the hammer.

“Uhh, yeah. I do that,” Maggie explained vaguely, “I went to rescue Thor and ended up getting all my memories and powers back when I lifted Mjölnir and then I got married and my ring apparently does the same thing,” She finished as everyone but Thor gapped at her.

“So, you’re a goddess?” Jane asked as she stepped forward.

“Yes, I guess Thor would be…,” She looked over him and changed her wording, “ ** _was_** considered a demi-god? Enhanced Alien? And I’m a full-blown celestial entity? We don’t know how to classify ourselves on Midgard…” She turned to Thor and he just shrugged. Rolling her eyes, she turned back to the group, “We’re not true gods… we just have powers…? Can manipulate energy…I don’t know. I’m sorry.” She sighed and then adjusted her glamour back to Maggie.

“Whoa!” Peter exclaimed as he picked up Mjölnir and approached Thor, “Can you do some lightning tricks?” He asked eagerly.

Thor reached for the hammer and then pulled back, “I’m sorry young Starkson, I am currently without my powers,” he turned towards Maggie and nodded towards her, “Perhaps your aunt would be able to demonstrate.”

“I don’t think so, Thor,” she replied as she took back Mjölnir and asked for her to changed back to a torc, “I think it’s time for bed. Jane, can we stay here tonight?”

Erik seemed to shake himself from his stupor and stepped forward, “You can have my bed in the caravan, I’ll take the pull out couch,” he offered.

“Can we have the pullout couch?” Peter asked Maggie as he started bouncing again.

Maggie looked at Jane and Erik and they both nodded their assent. “Then I guess we’re staying on the pullout couch. Why don’t you go wash up so we can go to sleep,” she pushed him towards the bathroom.

“Is it ok if I explain everything in the morning?” Maggie asked, “I need some time to process and I’m in desperate need of some sleep.”

“Of course,” Jane said as she turned to look at Darcy, “Is she going to be ok?”

Darcy was standing there with her mouth wide open, in shock. Maggie approached her and took her hands and reached for her powers. Feeling Darcy’s aura, she tweaked it and pulled her friend out of it, “Hey Darce, you back with us?” she asked her friend as she blinked.

“You’re… You’re… You’re…, “Darcy couldn’t finish.

“I’m special,” Maggie finished for her, “I’m not from Earth. I’m from a realm called Vanaheim, where I was the crown princess, and the Infinity Daughter.”

“Wow,” Darcy squeezed Maggie’s hands, “you’re a princess and an alien. An Alien Princess…”

“Yes, Darcy, but please don’t tell anyone on Facebook about it…or anyone, really. I don’t want SHIELD and Agent back here,” she warned her friend, “and Thor is an Alien Prince,” Maggie teased Thor over her shoulder.

“Oh?” Darcy perked up at that, “Is he engaged or married or anything?” she looked hopeful and Jane gave her a dirty look.

Maggie laughed and shook her head.

“Maggie!” Came Peter’s shout from Jane’s office where the couch was, “I can’t get the couch to unfold!”

“I’m coming, buddy!” She shouted back as she let go of Darcy’s hands, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

They all said their goodnights and Maggie helped Peter pull out the couch. Pulling off her boots, she went into the bathroom to clean up. She put on the extra soft clothes she had left in the car for such an occasion and got in next to Peter.

“Does it hurt?” came from the other side of the bed.

“Does what hurt?” She asked.

“Glowing?”

“No, it’s no different than you breathing. I do it naturally,” she explained to him, “I wasn’t born this way, I didn’t glow until I got my powers from my mom when she died.”

“Oh,” he paused, rolled towards her and cuddled up to her, “my mom died too.”

“I know, sweetie,” she kissed his forehead in comfort and squeezed him briefly, “go to sleep.”

“Ok,” came his sleepy reply, “love you, Maggie.”

“Love you too, love.”

***************

Loki returned to Asgard, giddy and joyful. The effort it took to remain his usual stoic and composed self was an extreme trial. And of course, Frigga noticed right away, especially when his seiðr sent sparks from his fingertips. He hadn’t had this problem since he was a youngling.

“Loki?” She called out from her seat at the small table in the antechamber of the All Father’s rooms, “What is going on?”

Loki closed his eyes and tried to focus. Taking a deep breath, he sat next to his mother and pulled a plate of food towards himself. _Filling my mouth with food will be an ample diversion_ , he thought.

“Loki!” His mother stressed as she stopped his hand.

“Sigyn,” was all he could manage before closing his mouth on the words that would slip out.

“What about her?” Frigga asked cautiously.

“She’s alive.”

“But…. Ah,” his mother seemed to come to a conclusion and she smiled, “I’m glad!”

“She refused to leave, mother,” Loki stood and started pacing, “I asked her to come home.”

“She no longer has a home in Vanaheim and she never considered Asgard her home,” his mother reasoned, “but if she refused to come here, she has the right to that decision. She is probably the most powerful entity of the Universe, she’s even more powerful than your father, she can take care of herself.”

Sighing, Loki sat down and took his mother’s hand, “I know and you’re right. She told me that we had time and she’s right. I just have to be patient.”

“Good, I don’t want to see her anger directed at you, I still remember the last time you angered her. After you turned her hair blue, she shaved yours off and called you Balder for a year,” his mother’s laughter rang through the chamber. “Thor even created stories about you and found you a wig for you to wear. Balder, the beautiful and just!” His mother continued to laugh.

Loki put his head on the table and sighed, maybe having his wife on Midgard for a little bit longer would be a good thing.

********

On the way to the Counsel to hear the concerns of the People, he passed the chamber where the Warriors Three and Sif were.

“Our dearest friend is banished, Loki on the throne, Asgard on the brink of war, yet you manage to consume four wild boar, six pheasants, a side of beef, and two casks of ale. Shame on you! Don’t you care?!” Fandral shouted at Volstagg.

“Do not mistake my appetite for apathy,” the stout warrior proclaimed.

“Stop it! Both of you!” Sif yelled at her companions “We all know what we have to do, we’re just too damned afraid to do it!”

“We must go. We must find Thor,” Hogun declared before pulling healing stones from the fire.

“It’s treason, Hogun. You may have a realm to hie off to if we’re caught, but the rest of us don’t,” Fandral complained. 

“To hell with treason, it's suicide,” Volstagg continued to stuff his face full.

Shaking his head, Loki continued to the Council chambers. He would have to come up with a solution to this mutiny and coming war soon if he ever wanted to avoid the coming conflict.

*******

The solution to peace with Jotunheim came to him while he paced in his chambers, swinging Gungnir in time with his steps. He shuddered and slid into the nearest chair, letting the relic lay beside him, “It’s the only way….” He trailed off and sighed, “she’ll never forgive me if she finds out.” He whispered, head-heavy in his hands.

*******

The trip on the Bifrost to the icy realm of Jotunheim was different this time. The silence was judging and the creep of the Frost Giants as they followed his progress was unbearable. As he approached the temple that they had all battled to escape from, he paused.

_This is the last chance to turn back_ , he thought, _but_ _she’ll never have to know of this scheme and they could move towards living their lives_ , he reasoned.

Stepping forward, feeling apprehensive, he walked into the damaged temple.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,” the booming voice of the Frost Giant King echoed in the chamber.

“I’ve come alone and unarmed.”

“To what end?”

“To make you another proposition.”

Laufey stared at Loki and struggled with his thoughts before answering, “So you’re the one who lets us into Asgard.”

“You’re welcome.”

“My men are dead, and I have no Casket. You are a deceiver!” Laufey lashed out and grabbed him by his throat but Loki stood his ground, it wasn’t the first time he’d been throttled.

“You have no idea what I am,” Loki spoke confidently, no one did, only Sigyn knew his true self. He allowed his Asgardian glamour to fall and his Jotun-self shifted over his features.

Loki grinned in victory as Laufey stared in shock and guards around him move restlessly before he released Loki from his hold and stood back. Loki shifted back to his Asgardian form.

“Ah, the bastard son, I thought Odin had killed you. That’s what I would have done. He’s as weak as you are,” he spoke bluntly having gotten over his shock, intrigued over this development.

“No longer weak, I now rule Asgard until Odin awakens. Perhaps you should not have so carelessly abandoned me,” he watched the reactions flicker over Laufey’s face.

“Perhaps it was the wisest choice I’ve ever made. I will hear you.”

“I will conceal you and a handful of your soldiers, lead you into his chambers, and let you slay him where he lies. I’ll keep the throne, and you will have the Casket,” Loki bargained, keeping his face stoic and focused.

“Why would you do this?”

“When all is done, we will have a permanent peace between our two worlds. Then I, the bastard son, will have accomplished what Odin and Thor never could.

“This is a great day for Jotunheim. Asgard is finally ours,” Laufey proclaimed.

“No. Asgard is **_mine._** The rest of the Nine Realms will be yours if you do as you’re told.”

“I accept.”

Loki turned to leave and just as he teleported to the Bifrost landing site, the smallest of smiles crossed his face.

*****

He was greeted by Heimdall, if you could call it that, “I turned my gaze upon you in Jotunheim, but could neither see nor hear you. You were shrouded from me, like the Frost Giants who entered this Realm.”

“Perhaps your senses have weakened after your many years of service.”

"Or perhaps someone has found a way to hide that which he does not wish me to see,” Heimdall accused.

Loki assessed the situation and smiled, “You have great power, Heimdall. Tell me, did Odin ever fear you?”

“No.”

“And why is that?”

“Because he is my King, and I am sworn to obey him.”

“Exactly. Just as you’re sworn to obey me now. Yes?” Loki paused for the answer he knew the Guardian would be forced to say.

“Yes.”

“Good,” Loki smiled darkly, “Then you will open the Bifrost to no one until I have undone what my brother has started.”

Striding away, he headed towards his chambers to change. He had a wife to woe.

*************

Maggie woke to a foot in her face and blanket-less, which always happened when Peter snuck into her bed when he was having problems sleeping. She loved him, but waking up to a sweaty boy foot in her face and freezing was not fun. Sighing, she shifted the boy over, covered him properly, and went to start some breakfast. Slipping on some flats, she braided her longer hair and rummaged through the fridge.

“You could come home and have all your meals served to you,” Loki’s voice came from behind her.

“I could, but then I would have to wait for them when I can just make it myself,” she retorted as she popped a grape in her mouth and then pulled eggs and bacon from the fridge.

“Are you here for breakfast?” She said as she dug for a pan, “Or are you here to apologize for wedding me without the bridal kiss and wedding night?” She pulled the pan out and waved it threateningly, “but I’ve waited two-hundred Midgardian years, what’s a few more?” She set the pan down and went to turn on the oven to pre-heat.

“I will never apologize for wedding you,” he came up behind her and rested his chin on her shoulder, and kissed her cheek, “I missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too, but you are deflecting. I can always tell, love,” she said as she started cracking eggs.

He wrapped his arm around her waist and sighed, “Sif and The Warriors are asking questions and I have a feeling that Heimdall will allow them to leave Asgard to find Thor.”

“So this isn’t just a social visit, it’s a warning,” she turned off the stove and turned to face him, “You’re worried that they will draw attention to me and I’ll be found.”

“Yes,” he looked concerned and angry, “Heimdall will never abide by my rule and The Warriors will defy me. Hogun is still angry that I wasn’t with you that day.”

Maggie stepped into his arms and he pulled her close and she could smell leather, books, and his spicy scent, “Then let them come,” she replied.

“I can’t. There’s been already too much activity to this part of Midgard and the Mad Titan was seen roaming. He’s searching for the Stones again.”

She sighed and just let herself be held. It had been too long and she missed it. Peter hugs were lovely, but Loki hugs made everything feel brighter and better, she laughed at her thoughts.

“What?” Loki pulled back, searching her face.

“I was thinking about Peter hugs and then Loki hugs,” she laughed again and smiled brightly at him, “I’ve missed Loki hugs.”

He laughed at her and pulled her close and lifted her, before spinning her around. Setting her down, he kissed her lips and stepped back and did the deepest of court bows, “I believe I've come for my breakfast, Your Majesty.”

She returned with the deepest of court curtsy, “Of course, Your Majesty.”

Laughter rang through the room, drawing in a sleepy Peter, “Maggie…?”

Maggie turned and saw the sleepy boy with the worst bed head shuffle towards her for his morning hug, “Morning, love,” she kissed his forehead and turned him towards Loki, “Peter, this is Loki, my husband.”

“When did you get married?” His eyes brightening, “Does this mean I have a new uncle?!”

“Uhh…. When did Thor have a chance to have a child?” Loki asked dumbfounded, “It hasn’t been that long…”

Maggie laughed and walked Peter over to the table and handed him an apple to snack on before breakfast, “Peter is not Thor’s!”

“My dad’s name is Tony,” Peter retorted before biting the apple.

“Tony adopted me, I’m his sister. Oh! I guess he’s my younger brother, now!” She laughed at the thought of telling Tony the news, “He’s going to love this! JARVIS?”

“Yes, Ma’am?”

“Oh….,” she was shocked at the name change, “Um… can you record when I tell Tony I’m his older sister. I want to play it back for **_everyone_**!”

“Of, course Ma’am. I will even save it to the file ‘Sir’s Greatest Reactions’.”

“Oh, please!” She went back to the kitchen area and started to make herself a coffee on instinct, not noticing Loki’s shock.

“Sigyn!”

“Yes, dear?”

“Where is JARVIS and what do you mean you were adopted?” Loki strode up to her and watched in fascination as she steamed milk and poured shots of espresso, “What are you doing?”

“Making coffee,” she handed him the finished latte, “Here. Thor loves coffee,” she egged on her husband, knowing if Thor loved something, Loki had to try it. She watched in fascination as he sipped and grimaced. Laughing at him she got down a mug and poured hot water from the attachment on JR, “Peter? Did we pack any of my tea?”

“Yeah, I think you put it in your purse right before we left home,” he said as he chewed on his apple, “can I have a Pop-Tart?”

“Pop-Tart?” Thor’s voice came from the doorway, “are there any more?”

“No. There are no Pop-Tarts since Thor ate them all yesterday,” she said as she pulled out a tea sachet and put it in the mug, poured water over it, and handed it to Loki, taking back her coffee, “Here, I think you’ll like this better, give it a few minutes to seep.” She sipped her coffee and moved over to start making breakfast.

Loki hummed in approval of the drink and sat next to Peter and Thor.

Darcy wandered out of her room next to Jane’s office at the smell of bacon and was surprised to see both Asgardians sitting at the table, “Who’s this? Another alien prince?”

“Actually, I’m currently a king,” Loki said smugly as he sipped his tea.

“And he’s mine, Darce. So no touchey!” Maggie threatened with her wooden spoon from the kitchen area, “You may look, but no touching,” she smiled evilly.

“Ok…,” Darcy took a seat next to Peter, “I can respect your rights by hanging with Peter, who is currently the only male at this table unspoken for,” she joked.

Jane came in, heard Darcy’s comment, and turned red, “Who’s that?” She said as she pointed to Loki, as she sat next to Thor.

“Loki, this is Jane, Thor’s girlfriend. Darcy is my friend from when I went to Midgardian school,” she said as she pulled bacon from the oven, “Peter? Can you set the table?”

Peter got up and grabbed plates and flatware and Maggie loaded a tray with mugs of coffee, “Has anyone seen Erik?” She asked as she handed the tray to Thor. Picking up a bowl of eggs she handed them to Loki to put on the table and gathered up the rest of the food she had prepared.

“He was just getting up when I was leaving the camper,” Jane said as she scooped eggs out on plates for everyone, “He’ll probably be in soon.”

True to her word, he walked in, bleary-eyed, with dark circles under his eyes. He sat down next to Loki, not noticing the Asgardian, “Maggie, dear, is there any coffee? I’m in desperate need…”

Maggie laughed and got up to make him some of the blend she and Tony had perfected, “I always have coffee, Erik. I’ll give you some of the ‘Desperate Times and Measures’ that Tony and I came up with.”

He hummed in acknowledgment and then seemed to notice Loki, “Who’s this?”

“Loki, this is Erik,” she called out from the espresso machine, “Jane and Erik specialize in the same study of science,” She generalized not knowing how to explain it to him.

Loki nodded to the scientist, Maggie handed Erik his coffee and they all ate breakfast. Just as they were finishing, they heard pounding on the window. Pausing they all turned to the window and saw Director Fury with dark sunglasses and an angry expression on his face.

He strolled in, pulled off his sunglasses, and glared at Maggie, “I believe you have something of ours, Ms. Stark.”

Maggie sighed and went to make herself some more coffee. She was going to need it.

*************

Tony and Rhodey started up the Atom collider and it whirled to life, they had sent Nat home right before they powered up.

“Initializing,” JARVIS intoned, “We’re at 96% power and the drain on the power grid is at 58%.”

“Let’s ramp it up, J!” Tony yelled over the noise, “We need to go full power to get the right results.”

Rhodey stood next to him, tinted welding glasses taking up his face with a very smug smile, “Here we go, Tones!”

“I know you’re as giddy as a schoolgirl, Rhodey Bear! But I need you to watch that readout panel over there!” Tony pushed him towards the control panel.

It was 4 am and they were hoping that no one noticed the temporary power outage on the Pacific Coast Highway, but they had a new element.

“Hot damn!” Tony declared as they watched the new arc reactor accept the new element.

“Congratulations, Sir. You and Colonel Rhodes have created a new element and it appears the reactor has accepted the modified core. I will begin running diagnostics.”

Rhodey couldn’t stop smiling and kept leaning into Tony in exhaustion.

“Let’s get cleaned up, have a nap, and then we’ll get the suits powered up. Then we’re off to New Mexico!” Tony pushed Rhodey towards the stairs, “I have a Pirate to supervise and a kid and sister to retrieve.”

*******

“I may or may not know where the object is,” she told Fury, “she is a magical, independent object that does what she wants.”

“Really?” The Pirate was not amused. He sipped the coffee he was offered, black like his soul, and raised his eyebrow.

“Fine,” she pulled off Mjölnir and handed it to him. Of course, he couldn’t lift it, so it sat on the table, the ruins glistening with power. “If you can lift her, you can take her with you. Otherwise, she stays with me,” she smiled her ‘Innocent Nanny’ smile at him.

He scowled and stood up, “I’m placing agents around to watch you.”

“Of course, Nick. You’re only looking out for my protection,” she said sarcastically. Loki coughed to cover his laugh in the kitchen area with the rest of the group.

With a flick of his long overcoat, he turned and left.

“Goodbye Mr. Pirate Director, Sir!” Peter yelled after him.

That kid was getting to be too much like his dad.

*******

The rest of the day went quietly. Loki left right after Fury and the rest of them lounged around doing their own thing. Peter kicked his ball around, Jane and Erik sat with Thor and went over science theories and Darcy played on her phone.

Maggie stood in the doorway with a cup of coffee and breathed in the fresh air. A sonic boom of the Bifrost startled her from her musings. “Oh, shit!” she saw the figures in the distance approaching the small town, and fear shivered up her spine. “Oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit! THOR!” She screamed as she turned and dashed back into the building.

Thor turned from helping Jane make maps of the Yggdrasil and looked at her eyes and body. His whole body went into battle mode, “Where’s the enemy?”

“YOUR BLOODY FUCKING DRINKING BUDDIES AND SIF ARE HERE!” She screamed at him, “Loki is going to be madder than a Bilgesnipe with an ax stuck in its hide. He will feel defied and betrayed!”

Thor paled in shock at her language and behavior, Sigyn had always been the most poised and well-spoken and this was not it. And she was right about Loki and it had gotten worse since her ‘death’. “What do we do?”

“You don’t do anything but take Peter and the rest of them away. Evacuate the town on the way out, but get **_out_**. I need to handle this or it’s going to blow up exponentially. JARVIS initiate ‘Iron Rescue’ I’m going to need backup.”

“Sir is notified and War Machine and Iron Man are on their way.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” she panicked.

“Maggie! I can’t leave!” Thor grabbed her shoulders, shaking her.

“You will leave!” She yelled at him as she pushed him away from her and towards the door. 

She walked out of the building and stood fifty feet in front of the gas station in the space between it and the rest of the town. Maggie felt her powers surge and anger build at the sight of the blatant disrespect to the throne. Standing she shifted forms and Mjölnir shifted to her hand.

“You dare leave Asgard unprotected!” Her voice boomed with her seiðr and she could feel the Infinity Mother pulse in awareness, “You act like stupid children and come strolling down a Midgardian town in your battle armor! How dare you!”

Hogun paused and paled. Dropping to his knees, he presented his mace and bowed his head. The others stood there shocked with their mouths open, gaping at her.

“Is that…?” Fandral asked, always the most vocal and dimwitted in the face of danger.

“It’s Sigyn!” Volstagg shouted.

“Oh, no,” Sif said, “She’s incensed.”

“You have defied your King and have come to Midgard when you were told explicitly not to,” Her voice boomed with power and seiðr, “You are treading a fine line between treason and death!”

They looked admonished.

“You will leave Midgard and return to Asgard to be punished. Thor and Mjölnir are under my protection.”

“Loki is planning something!” Yelled Fandral.

“He is always planning something!” Came her outraged response, “He’s the God of Mischief! GO HOME!”

There was a resounding boom again and The Destroyer landed.

“Fuck,” Sigyn whispered under breathe, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

********

When Tony got the emergency call from JARVIS, he and Rhodey had already replaced his reactor with the new one and they had gotten Rhodey into his new armor.

“I’m calling it Iron Patriot!” Rhodey declared as he manipulated the HUD and read all the weapons that had been added to the suit, “When I negotiated the forgiveness of the weapons contracts for a suit of armor for the Air Force, I never imagined this!”

“I’m glad you’re happy War Machine, but I need you to walk around and see if we need to adjust anything,” Tony snarked back at his best friend as he manipulated the readouts.

“Oooh, I like that better!”

“Sirs, Iron Rescue has been initiated from Ma’am.”

“Who the hell is that, J?”

“Miss Maggie married her betrothed and is now married to Loki of Asgard.”

“What?!” Both men exclaimed.

“How the fuck did that happen?!” Tony yelled as he moved towards his suit, “I want the full story on the way to Puente Antiguo, JARVIS. And if you leave anything out, I am restricting you to the Mansion for a week!”

“I apologize, Sir. I’ve been working on a project the last few days along with your project and I’ve had to prioritize.”

“Really, J? Whatever! Get me suited up and let’s go save my kid and sister!”

“I have a bad feeling about this, Tones,” Rhodey said with the face-plate up as Tony suited up.

“Don’t say that!”

*******

When the Warriors Three, Sif and Heimdall defied him, he sent the Destroyer to stop the Warriors on Midgard. It would be a quick death and he was sure that Thor would forgive him. Sigyn may not, but it was for her protection and he wasn’t losing her again. Grasping the Casket, he tucked it into his pocket dimension.

Things were working out, he just had to deal with The Guardian and then he’d be able to secure his birthright.

******

Sigyn stood there and welcomed the Infinity Mother. Even though She had shared her body for two-hundred years, she had yet to commune with the Entity. The Mother greeted her and showed her where all the Stones were located. She gave her the knowledge that even though she wasn’t in possession of them, she could request assistance if they were close enough and willing. Acknowledging the gift, Sigyn shifted to her battle armor. It had been too long since she had worn it and it felt restricting, she liked the armor that Tony had made for her better. She adjusted it and combined the two. Her under-armor was replaced with Tony’s custom catsuit and then overlaid with her greaves, vambraces, forget, and the headpiece that declared her a Master Sorceress. Markings of her rank and station appeared on her skin, swirly patterns in gold that disappeared under the clothing and ran up her body.

Space reached for her, she was the closest, _would you like me to assist you?_

She responded with gratitude and a gentle refusal.

The Infinity Mother then passed the memories of the past Mothers to her. She staggered but kept her footing as she watched the approach of the Destroyer. Revelations that befuddled her and shocked her ran through her mind, but she forced herself to focus, channeling her anger back into something more useful.

She watched as Coulson stupidly confronted the Destroyer and his car was blown up and the agents scattered. Sighing she started making her way out of town towards the chaos.

Arguing came from behind her, but she ignored them and continued to walk towards the danger. Coming up from behind her she could hear Sif and the Warriors Three shouting after her.

“My Queen, please allow us to fight by your side!” Hogun yelled at her.

Turning she confronted the group, “Why should I when this is your doing?”

They looked guilty and then decided, “We will stand by you and then answer for our actions,” Sif intoned and the others nodded their agreement.

Sigyn sighed and she turned and continued walking, “We need a plan,” she said over her shoulder.

******

Tony and Rhodey pushed their suits and arrived just as they saw five people, dressed as Ren Faire participants, attack a giant metal man.

“Is that one of ours?” Rhodey spoke over the coms to JARVIS and Tony, “Because if you’re holding out on the literal firepower, I want some.”

“No! That is not one of mine! I only have our suits, my original and-“

“Sir, backup is ten minutes out. The Iron Legion is at your disposal.”

“What?!” Tony yelled at his AI, “What have you been up to JARVIS? Ugh! I’m sitting down with you and we are discussing all the projects you have been managing behind my back after this!”

Rhodey laughed, “I don’t care as long as we don’t have to fight that alone,” he said as he saw several of the armored people get thrown. One woman stood out with her intricate headpiece and some familiar batons strapped to her back, “Is that Maggie channeling her inner larper?”

“Where did she get that get-up?” Tony asked as they landed.

“Who, knows. Let’s help and then ask her after this dude is defeated.”

They stepped in and drew fire as the two women battled the Giant Robot of Fire, one with a double-ended spear and the other with a sword in one hand and a hammer in the other. Meanwhile, the men threw their biggest one at it.

“This is not working!” A familiar voice came from the woman with the headpiece, “Tony! I need you to draw it out of town! Rhodey! I need you to make sure the rest of the town is evacuated. I had to send Peter with Foster and her group!”

They watched as she rose off the ground, eyes glowing and hair floating around her. She threw her sword at it, skewering it through the eye hole, and then sent an energy blast, sending it flying several feet towards the desert. Helicopters circled the town and they heard several jets pass overhead.

“Maggie, this is getting a little busy!” Tony shouted as he sent repulse blasts at the Destroyer, drawing it further into the desert, away from the town.

She kept throwing power blasts at it and just as she turned to draw it further out to the desert, she was hit with a blast of fire. Landing hard, she hit her head on a rock and lay still. The Destroyer paused and then appeared to power down.

A blond man ran out and gently turned her over and felt for her pulse. Not finding one, he hung his head in grief. After a moment he stood and ran up to the other woman who had been fighting, “Go, while you can!”

“What of Sigyn? The others…?” she asked as she gripped his shirt.

“You can’t help them now! Your job is to survive,”

Tony watched her struggle before his earpiece chirped, “Sir, we are incoming.”

On the horizon appeared several of his suits, painted a dark gray and navy blue. They swooped down and started picking up the injured and evacuating the townspeople. A bot that appeared more enhanced, pulled away from the others, and landed next to Maggie. Noticing the Giant Fire Robot was still powered down, Tony landed next to it.

“Sir, I’m taking her to Doctor Strange,” JARVIS’ voice came from the bot, “this suit will keep her alive until we reach him.”

“Ok, J. Keep her safe.” The suit enfolded her and blasted off.

The Fire Robot started up again and headed towards him. Tony rose back into the air and tried to push it back towards the desert.

“Metalman!” Yelled the blond man that had checked on Maggie.

“What do you need, Point Break! I’m a little busy!” Tony used his one-off laser, but it barely scratched the thing. Before he knew it he was swatted from the sky and ended up embedded in a brick building on the edge of town. He lost consciousness.

********

Thor strode up to the Destroyer, unarmed. He knew that Loki controlled it and his original plan of stopping the Warriors and Sif was now gone. Loki was despondent and now blamed Thor for Sigyn’s second death.

“I am sorry, brother. Please spare these people for they have done nothing to you! They are innocents.” Thor yelled as he approached it, “Take my life, and know I will never return to Asgard, for I have failed to protect her!”

The Destroyer paused, as if to contemplate his offer and before Thor knew it he was flying through the air towards the town. Landing hard, he heard Jane shout his name and he breathed his last.

******

Tony pulled himself out of the wreckage of the brick building just in time to see Point Break land a few feet from him. The hammer that Maggie had wielded earlier was laying several feet down the street from him and it started to crackle and the sky darkened.

The Fire Robot approached the prone man and started to power up to do a fiery blast, but before it could release it, a bolt of lightning hit it. The Robot was hurled backward, away from Blondie, enveloping the entire area in dust and sand. As the dust cleared, Point Break strode through it with Maggie’s hammer in his fist, clad in full battle armor similar to the others.

He used his lightning powers to fly and as Tony stood there in shock, faceplate open, he watched Blondie create a tornado, lift the Robot into the air and drive it into the ground. Destroying it.

“Oh my god! Dad! Did you see that!” Peter came running out to him from somewhere followed by Agent Coulson, Fury, and his freak brothers.

“I did see that, Peter, and I also saw Maggie get so hurt that JARVIS had to take her to Doctor Strange. So we’re leaving as soon as Happy gets here with the plane.”

“She’s dead,” Point Break approached him, “I couldn’t find a pulse.”

“JARVIS said he would keep her alive until one of the best doctors we have here can take care of her. I trust both of them to keep her alive,” Tony said angrily, “No thanks to any of you,” Tony turned to Fury.

“She’s enhanced, she’s more than capable,” he retorted.

“That’s no excuse!” Tony yelled, “You promised me that she and Peter would be ok!”

Point Break started at that and turned to Tony, “You are Peter’s father and Maggie’s brother. I am Thor of Asgard,” Thor bowed, “please accept my thanks for caring for my sister in marriage. You forever have my gratitude.”

“Uhhh…,” Tony was a little speechless, “She can take care of herself pretty well, but you’re welcome.”

Thor then turned to the warriors next to him and he saw Jane, “I’m sorry but we’re going to have to leave to deal with Loki. He’s going to be inconsolable and destructive until we tell him Sigyn lives.”

As a group, they all moved to where the Bifrost landed and Thor started to shout for Heimdall. After several moments of no response, Thor looked around in concern, “He would open it if he could. I fear the worst.”

Tony’s com chirped, “Sir, Ma’am is fine. By the time we reached Doctor Strange, she was recovered. He is calling you now..”

“Stark!?”

“Strange. How is Maggie?”

“She’s fine, no bruises or lacerations. She’s a little dizzy from hurtling cross-country in a metal bucket, but she appears fine. “

“Good. Can I talk to her?”

“Tony?”

“Maggie, what is this I hear about you getting married?”

“Oh, no…”

“What is it Mags?”

“He thinks I’m dead and it’s not going to end well! Where’s Thor?”

At that moment an energy tornado screamed down and Thor turned towards the SHIELD agents, “Know this, son of Coul. You, I, and the Metal Man fight the same cause, the protection of the world, from this day forward, count me as your ally.” He paused and looked at Doctor Foster, “If you return the items you have stolen from Jane Foster.”

“Not stolen, borrowed,” Agent said as Doctor Foster gave him a dirty look, “We will return your equipment. We were going to after we encountered Ms. Stark, I’m sure she would have slit me stem to stern if I hadn’t.”

Thor smiled, “Ah Maggie is a fierce warrior and a shrewd negotiator, and she learned it at our mother’s knee over a thousand years ago. Take care of her for me Metal Man,” he shook Tony’s hand and then turned to Jane. “Whatever fate lies before me, you are part of it.” He kissed her and then leaped into the energy tornado.

“Dad, can we go home?” Peter asked from next to him, “I’m done space science for a while.”

“Sure bud, after we go get Maggie.”

“Ok, but we gotta bring her JR or she’ll get decaffeinated.”

Tony laughed and ruffled Peter’s hair, “We won’t forget JR.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more angsty chapter then the Epilogue!
> 
> Thanks so much for reading, commenting, and kudoing! <3 ~M.


	9. The Fall

Maggie woke in the dark, not knowing where she was. She couldn’t move and all she could see was blinking lights and hear the whoosh of air passing by her.

“Help! Where am I? JARVIS?” She panicked.

“Ma’am, please remain calm. We are currently twenty minutes from Metro General, where Doctor Strange is awaiting your arrival. You were dead for twenty minutes, Ma’am,” JARVIS sounded distraught. He’d been showing more and more emotions lately.

“I’m sorry for scaring you, JARVIS. Thank you for rescuing me,” she reassured the AI.

“You are welcome, Ma’am. I’m glad you are still with us,” he replied sternly.

Maggie sighed and tried to make herself relax. The Infinity Mother was quiet and it appeared that she had lost the connection to the Entity. Before she knew it, the suit slowed down and she felt it land, open and she fell out into someone’s arms.

“Maggie?!” Doctor Strange said as he caught her and helped her to the gurney that was waiting next to him with several other people, “Christine, I need you to run ahead and let them know she’s responsive.” He helped her lay down and the gurney started rolling, the lights passed overhead, “No! Keep your eyes open!” He yelled at her as she closed her eyes.

“I’m ok, Doc,” she mumbled as they kept rolling, “I’m fine, just a bit of a bump.”

“You were dead for at least twenty minutes! JARVIS sent me live vitals as you were hurtled to New York in a tin can!” He appeared to not be calming down.

“I’m ok, Doc,” she repeated as she was rolled into a room, the suit followed her in and stood sentry right inside the doorway.

“How do we get this off of you?” Christine asked as she lifted Maggie’s wrist and gestured to the armor.

“If you remove everyone except you and Strange, I’ll help you,” Maggie said.

Christine looked at Strange as he finished checking her vitals and he nodded, “she’s stable at the moment, so it should be ok.”

The other three people left and the curtain closed. Taking a deep breath, she phased everything to a tank top and some workout shorts.

“What the hell!” Christine exclaimed and Strange stood there with his mouth open, blinking.

“What the hell!” Strange yelled this time as Christine took a step forward and started examining her.

“She appears unharmed,” Christine said as she lifted her shirt and checked her stomach.

“I’m a little dizzy,” Maggie said as she moved to sit up so Christine could check her back.

“We hit Mach 1.8 at one point,” The suit that had brought her, responded with JARVIS’ voice, “I’ll have to make adjustments to the suits to accommodate that.”

“Going for a record I see, JARVIS,” Maggie responded sarcastically.

“I’m going to call Stark now and let him know that you’re ok,” Strange responded, finally recovering from his shock as he pulled out his phone and made the call.

***********

Thor landed in the Bifrost Observatory and saw an ice-encrusted Heimdall slumped over his sword in the center of the Bifrost Engine, “Take him to the healers, I’ll go deal with Loki,” he told his friends as he used Mjölnir to fly to the palace. Making his way to his father’s chambers, he passed shocked and confused servants and Einherjar guards as he strode through the hallways. The scene he found in his father’s chambers shocked him. Remains of several Frost Giants lay on the floor and his mother was beaming proudly at Loki. Loki’s face was impassive, the stress of the last few years lay even more heavily.

“Sigyn lives brother,” Thor told his family.

“She’s dead, I felt it,” Loki spoke with no emotion, “I am now ensuring that Asgard will not be subject to war and more death,” at the last word he raised Gungnir and fired at Thor, sending him flying backward and smashing through several walls until he plummeted from the palace and crashed into the reflecting pools below.

Thor awoke to the sound of the Bifrost winding up getting ready to fire. Acting swiftly he used Mjölnir to fly to the Observatory. Leading with Mjölnir, he aimed for the spinning turret that aimed at Jotunheim. Just in time, he was able to disrupt it, just barely missing the realm but not stopping it from tearing a hole in the universe.

Landing in front of the doorway of the turret, he observed Loki standing on top of the controls, that were embedded in a massive block of ice. “Loki! Stop this madness!” Thor shouted as he made to smash the block of ice, but before he could get close, Loki blasted him again with Gungnir.

“You can’t stop it! The Bifrost will continue to build until it destroys Jotuneheim! Your little stunt just delayed the inevitable!”

“Why have you done this!?”

“To destroy what would destroy us first! I will protect Asgard if no one else will!”

“You can’t kill an entire race!”

“What is this newfound love for the Frost Giants!? It can’t be just because of me! You, who would have killed them all with your bare hands just a short time ago!”

“I’ve changed,” Thor stated, squaring off for the worst. It seemed that his brother was past truth and reason and he was going to have to stop him.

“So have I. I have nothing left to lose except Asgard and I will protect it. Unlike someone else who promised to protect something that I loved, I intend to keep that promise.” With a swing of Gungnir, he went to hit Thor with it but Thor caught it and reared back as if to return the blow. Instead, he took to the air and attempted to reach the controls to stop the Bifrost beam. Recovering quickly, Loki spun and blasted Thor, immobilizing him in the air, suspended.

“Is the throne worth what you’ve done? What you would become?” Thor asked, realizing that he may have lost his brother to his grief and anger, for good this time.

“I never wanted the throne of Asgard! I just wanted to live a life with the love of my life and to help her and you bring peace to the Nine Realms! To be your equal! Instead, I lost everything! Again!” Loki screamed at his brother flinging him to the ground, hard, cracking the bridge.

“This is madness!” Thor yelled, “She lives! Sigyn is alive!”

“Lies! My entire life has been nothing but lies and this is just another one!” Loki screamed at him, firing Gungnir at him, “Why won’t you fight me, brother? What happened to you on earth that turned you so soft? Don’t tell me that it was that woman because that would be ironic.” Thor continued to dodge the blasts from Gungnir as Loki laughed crazily, herding him away from the turret.

“It was! Perhaps when we’re finished here, I’ll pay her a little visit… “ Loki taunted and Thor threw himself at his brother, their weapons collided.

The Bifrost beam continued to build and widen as it got closer to the surface of Jotunheim and the shaking of the bridge knocked Loki off-balance, Thor caught him with the hammer, flinging him a far distance away from the turret. Thor flew after him and landed next to him, placing his hammer on Loki’s chest. As Loki struggled to move, Thor made his way back towards the Bifrost Machine to try and disable it. With the strength of the surge of energy moving through the Bridge, Thor couldn’t get close enough to enter.

“Look at you! The Mighty Thor! With all your strength, what good does it do you now!?” Loki jeered at him, still immobilized by the hammer.

Looking down, at the bridge below him, it vibrated with the force and power of the Bifrost energy feeding into the Observatory and turret. Realizing that he would have to destroy the Bridge, he took a deep breath and summoned his hammer towards him, and raised it in the air. Using his connection to Asgard and as much seiðr as he could, he channeled everything through Mjölnir and struck the bridge with all his strength.

“Stop! What are you doing?!” Loki screamed from behind him, “If you destroy the Bridge, you’ll never see her again!” He grabbed Gungnir and ran towards Thor, ready to pierce Thor through the back to stop him.

“Forgive me, Jane. Forgive me, Sigyn.” Thor intoned before taking one last swing, one last pull of seiðr, one final and terrible blow.

The Bridge exploded.

The Observatory ripped itself apart, taking the edges of Asgard with it as it plummeted off into the abyss of space.

Both brothers, an instant from being blasted by the destructive wave of energy, carried away by the blast when Thor was caught by the leg. They dangled over the edge of the broken bridge, over empty space with Thor holding on to Gungnir, Loki at the other end, Odin holding on to Thor.

Loki looked up to the All-Father, “Asgard is safe.”

“But at what price?” Odin asked.

Sadness, despair, and regret passed over Loki’s face and Thor knew what his brother was going to do.

“Loki! Sigyn lives! She loves you! She still needs you! Don’t do this!”

“She’s gone. And I have nothing left.” Loki let go and fell.

Loki fell into the nothingness black of space.

**Gone.**

********

Maggie panicked when she lost connection with Tony because If Thor went back without her, Loki would do something drastic. If he thought she was dead again, she knew that he would disconnect and do everything and anything to preserve the safety of Asgard.

“Shit,” she swore as she made herself calm down so she could phase back her armor and then ask Space to help her teleport to New Mexico so she could go back with the Asgardians or access the Bifrost through her wedding ring. She still couldn’t figure out how Eitri had done it, but perhaps it had something to do with the Uru that it was made with.

Before she could do anything she felt a great shift in the Universe’s dimensional energy. It surged and seemed to resonate oddly and she felt the Infinity Mother awaken. Maggie asked her to help, but The Mother declined. _You need to stay here, you can not interfere._ She spoke for the first time.

She went to stand, but Christine reached out for her and stopped her from getting up, “You have to stay here until we clear you to leave,” she chided.

“But I need to go,” Maggie begged, “The worst is happening and I need to stop it. JARVIS, I need to leave.”

“Ma’am I need you to stay here. Sir is coming to get you with the jet and then we’ll go home.”

“Please…,” she begged once more before she started to cry, “I can feel it…. “

The echo of the Bifrost as it ripped through the universe to disrupt the Nine Realms. She could feel Yggdrasil shift her branches ….

“He’s gone.” She wept as she felt him leave her. The connection to him through her ring was gone. She hadn’t realized how much of him was there until it was missing.

Christine and Doctor Strange watched her as she broke and JARVIS, made physical with the suit, came to her and gathered her in his arms, “I’m so sorry, Ma’am.”

She didn’t know how long she was there before she was able to recover and pull back from the suit. Wiping her eyes she smiled a little at the absurdity of the fact that JARVIS had physically comforted her for once. “JARVIS If you keep this up, Tony is going to have to get you a birth certificate and a social security number,” she deflected.

Standing, she centered herself and pulled the Infinity Mother forward. She felt her powers surge and she wrestled her to obey her, “I will not be denied,” she told the Mother. She shifted on her armor and then grasped Christine’s hand, “Thank you for your care Doctor.”

She turned to Strange and took his bare hand in hers and she felt Time reach for her. _This one is ours._ He said _he will wield us to save the world_. In a blink of an eye, she saw his future and several possible futures, “Oh. Doctor Strange, I…” She didn’t know what to say, she let go of his hand and stood back and studied his bare face, “In your darkest hour, at your lowest point, I am here for you. Tony is here for you. Please reach out and we will help you,” She flicked her wrist and a card with her, and Tony’s numbers appeared. She turned back to Christine and handed it to her, “When Stephen needs us, please call us, I know already he won’t.”

“Oh… ok.” Christine looked a little dumbfounded as she took the card.

“Goodbye and thank you,” Maggie said as she walked over to the suit, put her hand on its shoulder, and teleported to New Mexico.

She found the desert quiet, the others all there minus the Asgardians.

“Maggie!” Peter shouted as he ran to her and hugged her, “You’re dressed so cool!”

“Thanks, Peter,” she kissed his head and hugged him back, “I’m glad you’re ok.”

“I’m glad **_you’re_** OK,” Tony said as he came up and hugged both of them, “I freaked when JARVIS said you were dead… please don’t do that again.”

“I’ll try not to,” she replied.

The others started moving back towards the destroyed town where agents ran around giving out first aid and starting the clean-up process.

“You’re out of the closet now, Tony,” Maggie told her brother, “there’s no going back.”

“I know,” Tony replied as he walked next to her without his suit on, “Pepper has everything prepared, and Rhodey and I have been working on a plan since I made the Mark II suit. Rhodey negotiated for me to be able to destroy enemy weapon depots and we bought back all the weapons we had legitimately sold to the Armed Forces. He also negotiated a suit for a trusted individual to use, meaning himself, forgiving SI for the broken weapons contracts. He’s a sneaky Platypus,” he smiled over at his friend, “Aren’t you Rhodey Bear?”

“How do you think I managed as your friend so long?” Rhodey teased, still wearing his suit.

“Since JARVIS decided to make some suits on his own, we’re classifying them as search and rescue only. No weapons,” Tony admonished the modified suit that had carried her to New York, “How does it feel to have a body, JARVIS?”

“Sir, this is not my body. This is a search and rescue medical droid with defensive capabilities,” JARVIS replied, “I am only here to guard you, Master Peter and Ma’am.”

Maggie lagged, not laughing at JARVIS and his ‘body’ with the rest of them. She reached out to Space to see if she could transport her to Asgard or if she would have to channel the Bifrost capabilities of her ring. _That far of a trip, I would need to be closer to you._ She replied. Sighing, Maggie shifted her armor to some more comfortable clothes. She didn’t care who saw her, she still appeared as Sigyn with teal eyes and auburn hair.

They walked back to Jane’s lab and Maggie and Peter gathered up their belongings, “Thank you for having us,” Maggie thanked Jane and Darcy, “I’m sorry about everything,” she said as she hugged them.

Tony shook their hands, including Erik’s, “I’ll send you some fun tech to play with and a Leo JR,” he told them as he gathered his family and they got into the Volvo.

Rhodey, still in his suit, bent down to talk to Tony in the driver’s seat, “I’m going to fly back to base. I’ll see you guys in a few days, OK?” He looked over at Maggie and back at Peter.

“Ok!” Peter smiled at his uncle, “Bye Uncle Rhodey!”

Maggie made herself smile at him and waved goodbye, “Safe flight, Colonel.”

“Bye Platypus, don’t hit any birds on the way home,” he pushed his sunglasses up on his nose and put the car in gear.

They drove to the hotel and collected the rest of their belongings and Tony checked them out. Maggie got back in the car and waited for the other two to get in. She played with her ring and tried to think of a way to get to Space. Closing her eyes, she centered herself and reached out to her. Before she knew it she was yanked from the car and found herself in a dark room with a single metal case in the center on a metal table. Shocked she shuffled forward and saw the tiny gap around the center glow blue. Reaching out, she flipped the latches and opened the case. It was the Tesseract.

_Hello, Mother,_ Space greeted her, _We can go when you are ready._

Just as she was about to reach out and grab the cube, she heard a click of a door and she was surrounded by armed people in tactical gear, SHIELD emblazoned on their chests.

“Oh, well that explains it,” Maggie said before she reached out and grabbed the cube before she willed herself back to the car where she quickly stuffed the Infinity Stone in her purse. 

Tony and Peter came out, oblivious to the fact she had not been there the whole time. They got in the car they drove to the airport where Happy took them home.

************

The next day, after they had gotten home, she pulled the Tesseract from her purse and decided that she couldn’t continue to draw attention to them by harboring it. She teleported herself back to where it had been held by SHIELD and went to put her back in the case.

“Ms. Stark, I’m surprised you brought the Tesseract back,” came a deep voice behind her.

“I felt that I would draw too much attention to my family if I kept it, Nick.”

“Well legally it is Stark’s but you’re right that it’s safer here.”

“I’m just going to visit her from time to time. She hates it here but understands why she has to be here for now. She says I’m not ready yet. Something has to happen first…. She’s very mysterious,” Maggie rambled as cupped the cube in her hands.

“Since we can’t stop you… but no one else. It’s bad enough that you can get in here without any trouble, it’s all I need is Stark to hijack this facility,” Fury complained.

“Fair, but she won’t be here much longer,” Maggie went to put her back in the case, “I just need to ask her to transport me somewhere first. The Bifrost was destroyed and I need to find out what happened...” She whispered before she reached for the Infinity Mother and her powers to help channel the Tesseract.

With a blinding flash of blue light, she was gone and all that remained was a twinkling cube. Fury closed the case lid, clipped the latches closed, and left the room.

“I will have Goose eat it again before I let the Tesseract leave here,” he threatened the seemly empty room.

The Space stone twinkled in laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is almost it, people, I hope you've enjoyed everything so far!


	10. Epilogue

She arrived in an empty throne room, the gold glistening off her inner glow, and she turned towards the door. As she moved she adjusted her garments to reflect her status as a Crown Princess of Vanaheim, Princess of Asgard, and former Queen in absentia of Asgard. Braids of her rank wove themselves into her hair, the headpiece declaring her Master Sorceress nestled in her braids, jewels and gold on her wrists and the matching gorget to her husbands around her neck and her wedding ring glinted from her right hand and gold markings on her skin.

“My Queen,” Hogun stepped from behind a pillar near the massive carved doors and bowed deeply.

“I am not your Queen,” she declared, “my parents were murdered and I was replaced.”

“You are still the rightful Queen,” he stated as he stood straight, “Their Majesties await you in the Hall.”

He allowed her to pass and followed her to the large hall where a banquet of feasting was commencing. Angry, she summoned a staff and used her seiðr to draw attention to herself.

Thor approached her and bowed, low. The bow of a prince to a queen, “Your Majesty.”

She searched his face and sent the staff back to her pocket dimension, reaching out she stole his memories of the fate of her husband. Angry and despondent, her splendor turned black and tarnished. She lifted her right hand, swept it in front of her face, and a dark veil covered her visage. “I will speak to your parents,” she told him coldly.

He led her to the end of the Hall, through the doors, to a room with a fire in the center of the floor and several cushioned benches. Odin and Frigga sat together on the largest that faced the door, standing as she approached them.

Sigyn gave them the curtsy of a Queen to another ruler of lower rank and Odin blinked in surprise and Frigga frowned.

“I came into my powers after your sons decided to act rashly and declare war on Jotunheim, get banished to Midgard, destroy a small town, attempt genocide and then leap off the Bifrost bridge in despair!” Her shout echoed through the room and she stepped into Odin’s personal space, pushing her finger into his chest, “all because an old man couldn’t tell his youngest son about his origins. He couldn’t tell him that he had been tricked and that he **_was_** his son by blood. That his mother may not be his mother, but his father was. And all because of _**shame,**_ I have no _**realm!**_ I have no _**husban** **d!**_ And I will end up being the last _**Infinity Mother**_!”

Frigga wept and Odin looked ashamed and Sigyn turned and swept out of the room.

Summoning the Bifrost, she deposited herself back in New Mexico, overlaying the markings of the last trip taken by Thor to Asgard. Sighing in exhaustion, she asked Space to deposit her in front of the Malibu mansion. She had a brother to talk to.

**********

Tony inspected his sister who had appeared in front of their home just moments ago. Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he escorted her into the house and to the couch. Sitting her down he opened her arms and allowed her to cry.

“He’s dead, Tony,” she whispered hoarsely, “he thought I was dead and he let go.”

He held her closer and let her cry herself out.

When she finally pulled herself back together she twisted the ring on her right hand, “I need you to take this and put it in the house vault. I shouldn’t have remembered and now I don’t want to remember,” she whispered, “then make me leave, Tony. I’m a danger to you and Peter and I can’t bring that down on you again,” silent tears dripped from her lashes and her teal eyes shimmered with her pain.

“You are not leaving, us!” Tony declared, shaking her gently, “You are my sister and you are staying with us! I will lock up the ring, but we will have it near enough that if we need protection we can get it back to you.”

She stared at him blankly, “I can’t! I can’t do that to you two again!”

“Since everyone knows I am Iron Man, Pete and I will need all the help we can get. I have so many enemies that will come after us and we need you!”

“Please stay, Ma’am,” JARVIS said, “I need you too.”

She sighed and then rested her head on Tony’s shoulder in defeat and exhaustion, “Ok,” she whispered, “I’ll stay.” She held up her right hand and Tony pulled off the ring.

Maggie passed out.

*************

Space had felt The Mother's sorrow when she had teleported her home to Malibu and she knew that Mother had lost her mate. But when Space felt a twinge and then lost contact with the Infinity Mother, she soon realized that she had taken off the Dwarven Relic that was connecting her to her powers. Not understanding emotions, Space struggled to understand why The Mother would do something so extreme, so she searched for the missing mate as a solution. 

Weeks or months later, she wasn't Time for Mother's sake, Space felt something reach out.

_Hmmm…. Hello Mind_ ,” she greeted, “ _The Mother has lost her Mate, have you seen him_?

_Yes,_ He replied, _I have found him._

_Good, bring him to us._

_It will bring the Titan’s Army_.

_We will deal with it_ , Space replied, _The Mother needs hope_.

*********

Maggie Will Return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And Que The Avengers!
> 
> Thanks for coming this far with me on my crazy journey, I love all your comments, kudos and speculations!
> 
> Love to all of you!
> 
> ~M

**Author's Note:**

> So Iron Man 2 is supposed to take place in May-June 2010 and Thor is of course during the same time. But you see Jane, Darcy and Erik all wearing coats, hats, boots ect. in New Mexico when it’s supposedly 88 degrees F during the day and 40 degrees F at night. So I can see the coats at night, but not during the day. Ugh. So I can see maybe late April early May? They do have the doors open on their research ‘lab’/old gas station during the day. But whatever, use your imaginations…? It’s a cold cold May/June in New Mexico? Global Warming? 
> 
> Ugh! My. Brain. Can't. Logic. It.
> 
> Whatever. It's the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's messy. 
> 
> Enjoy!


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